New research from EventsAir, a leading event management software provider, reveals a significant gap between enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and its practical adoption across the events industry. While 72 per cent of event professionals consider AI valuable or essential for improving event outcomes, 26 per cent are still not using it all.
Among those using AI, event marketing is currently the leading application, cited by 62.4 per cent of respondents, well ahead of data analysis and reporting (37.8 per cent). 15 per cent apply it to logistics and operations, 14.5 per cent to maximizing attendee engagement and 13.2 per cent attendee personalization.
The findings, drawn from a survey of 380 event professionals across EMEA, ANZ and North America, feature in a new EventsAir guide, AI in Events: Practical Guidance for Professional Event Planners.
The guide focuses on the areas where planners are already experimenting with AI and seeing practical impact. It explores what is working, what is slowing the broader adoption and what confident, responsible implementation looks like.
Mehdi Khalili, Chief AI & Technology Officer at EventsAir, observes that AI offers two categories of opportunity to the events planner. “The first is productivity. Think of AI as a planner assistant, an extra pair of hands or as many pairs of hands as you need. Instead of clicking through a platform to find an answer, you ask a question and get it. Instead of manually building a post-event report or reconfiguring an agenda, you communicate what you need and it does it.
“The second is hyper-personalization at scale. A planner can, in theory, review attendees’ interests and make calculated connections between them to build personalized agendas, networking opportunities and tailor communications in a way that human capacity cannot match.”
Barriers to adoption
Despite strong interest in AI, the research highlights several obstacles preventing wider adoption. Nearly two-third (62.7 per cent) of event professionals identified a lack of knowledge or expertise as a key barrier, while 52.9 per cent cited data privacy or security concerns. Cost or budget constraints were mentioned by 31.4 per cent and 24.1 per cent quoted resistance to change from staff or leaders.
“Interest in AI is strong and belief in its potential is widespread, but confidence in how to apply it is still developing,” said Khalili. “For many event professionals, the next step isn’t about adopting AI everywhere. It’s about building AI literacy, identifying practical use cases and starting with focused experiments that can deliver meaningful value.”
To help planners take those first steps, AI in Events includes a Beginner’s Playbook covering AI literacy and practical, role-based experiments, including example prompts event professionals can put into practice.
The guide is available to download free at: https://www.eventsair.com/resources/ai-in-events-report
Bringing AI into event planning workflows
The research comes as EventsAir expands the use of AI within its event management platform. The company
recently launched Planner Assistant, as part of its AI based Air Intelligence suite, designed to help event professionals work with their live and historical event data using natural-language conversations.
Planner Assistant allows planners to ask complex questions and uncover insights directly within EventsAir, without building reports or navigating dashboards.
For example, a planner can ask " Can you show me total revenue collected so far, broken down by registration type and payment status?" and get an instant, visual answer. Ask "Which sessions are trending toward overcapacity?" and Planner Assistant can go a step further, taking action on the planner’s behalf, such as moving a session to a larger hall, on request and in the same conversation.
More information about Air Intelligence and Planner Assistant is available at eventsair.com.
2027 State of Events survey now open
The 2027 EventsAir State of Events survey is now live.
Each year, this research has pointed to real shifts in how event teams operate: where budgets are being redirected, how team structures are evolving, and what planners are prioritizing as their events change.
Now in its third year, the State of Events report brings these signals together into the industry's clearest read on where events are headed.
Event professionals worldwide are welcome to take the 5-minute survey to see how their event program compares with others. By taking part they will gain early access to the findings and go in the draw for a US$200 gift card.
