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This is a tricky inflection point for associations when it comes to AI. Organizations have gotten more comfortable with using it for low-hanging-fruit situations—content generation, chatbots—and increasingly recognize the importance of communicating its value and dangers to their membership.
But the next step is to determine whether they want to use it more dynamically. Last year, a 2025 meeting forecast from Amex GBT Meetings & Events suggested that organizations were ready to expand AI use: “AI features are now more present within registration for personalized communications, within sourcing tools for more robust and consistent RFPs, and we look forward to more AI enhancements in onsite event technology,” Ariana Reed, Director of Global Strategic Partnerships told me in December. “Our interest in AI is not just to solve for efficiencies in creative content but also to allow us to improve attendee experience with more personalization.”
But halfway into 2025, leaders are holding back. According to a new report from Forrester on B2B events, 39 percent of organizations are already using AI for content generation around events. But after that, current usage falls precipitously: only 23 percent are using it for event data analysis, and 15 percent use it for attendee personalization, such as session and networking recommendations.
According to a report on the study, leaders are still anxious about how much they want to be seen as intruding on attendees’ privacy: “Leaders we spoke with were more focused on exploring AI to drive productivity and efficiency improvements and expressed nervousness with AI that directly touches attendees.”
Only 15 percent of organizations use AI for event personalization.
The cautiousness isn’t out of place. Even setting aside the headline-grabbing examples of AI falling down on the job—the hallucinations, the sudden emergence of rocks as a food group—AI is essentially a data-management issue, and organizations need to pay attention to the security questions inherent in AI, just as they would with their AMS or other member-sensitive technologies.
To that end, taking the next step around AI and meetings—more personalization, more predictive intelligence about what attendees want before and during the event—means establishing clear protocols around what data is used and how. On top of that, association leaders need to be transparent with both members and staff about what information it’s using as how.
As Sidecar Chief Marketing Officer Erica Salm Rench told me for a recent Assocations Now Deep Dive story on AI usage, “ “Association leaders have two very big obligations — they’re separate, but they’re both very important. One being to educate their staff, and the other being to be the thought leader for their space so that they can teach their members how to use AI.”
The care is important, since the meetings landscape is increasingly uncertain. Will recession concerns eat into travel? Will international travel diminish? How much will increase costs eat into profits? Associations will likely look for opportunities to increase efficiency. The gee-whiz factor will be hard for some to resist: As the Forrester report puts it: “AI’s promise in event management is undeniable. Some trailblazers we spoke with are experimenting with cutting-edge applications such as facial recognition to understand attendee sentiment.” But associations will have to prove they can respect their attendees’ privacy before they rush to scan their faces.
Mark Athitakis, a contributing editor for Associations Now, has written on nonprofits, the arts, and leadership for a variety of publications. He is a coauthor of The Dumbest Moments in Business History and hopes you never qualify for the sequel. MORE
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