There’s been a lot of noise about AI in the events industry. A lot of it is vague and, honestly, quite alarming if you believe the best events are fundamentally human experiences. And, we DO fiercely believe that.
We also believe AI has a genuinely important role to play in making those experiences even better. The keyword being ‘better’, not ‘replaced’.
When Spotify’s Wrapped campaign first launched, it was a cultural event in its own right – a shareable, personalised snapshot that millions looked forward to each December. Then in 2024, Spotify leaned heavily on AI to generate it. The result was generic listening personas and the kind of ‘personalisation’ that felt distinctly impersonal.
The numbers don’t lie. Positive sentiment dropped from 50.5% in 2023 to 41.5% in 2024. Negative sentiment nearly doubled, rising from 8.3% to 13.6%. All because a brand swapped human insight for algorithmic convenience.
The lesson isn’t that AI is bad. It’s that AI used to bypass an authentic connection will always fall short. Spotify recognised this…eventually. For its 2025 Wrapped, they ditched the AI-forward aesthetic entirely and grounded the campaign in mixtape nostalgia. AI was still present, generating 1.4 billion personalised reports behind the scenes, while the experience felt entirely human.
The Human-First Approach to AI in Events
In the events world, shortcutting opportunities for moments of human connection has lasting consequences – most likely disengaged attendees who won’t return.
The brands and agencies getting the balance right share a consistent philosophy: AI as invisible infrastructure, not the headline feature. Technology working quietly in the background so that the human moments in the foreground can land harder.
At IMEX America 2024, Gevme’s Snapsight tool delivered attendees personalised summaries of sessions they’d just attended. This considered intervention extended the value of each talk without making the technology the talking point. As Gevme’s CEO put it, technology should be like Wi-Fi: invisible, supporting the experience rather than competing with it.
At asembl., we’ve applied this thinking for years, from staging the world-first AlphaGo challenge match for Google DeepMind, to gamifying the event app for a major IT client’s sales kick-off. That latter project achieved a 79% app adoption rate in its inaugural year. Technology serving the experience, not trying to be the experience.
The practical question on most event professionals’ minds right now. The honest answer: with intention.
There are areas where AI is already delivering measurable value:
Equally important is knowing how not to use it. A resounding no to:
X Generating generic content dressed up as personalisation.
X Replacing the human creative instinct that decides an incentive trip should go to Lapland rather than the default hotel conference.
X Oversimplifying your audience into neat algorithmic categories that feel nothing like the real people you’re trying to engage.
Accessibility is one of the most compelling arguments for thoughtful AI integration and is one that’s often undervalued. Captioning and automated translation, with tools like Apple AirPods 3 offering this live, have transformed the experience of international events. When an attendee can follow a keynote in their native language or participate without the anxiety of a language barrier, the event becomes richer for everyone.
With 1 in 7 people in the UK being neurodivergent and 85% having previously avoided events for fear of being overwhelmed, the accessibility challenge is significant. AI has a supporting role here too: personalised communication formats, accessible registration flows and data-informed design all contribute to events that work for everyone, not just the majority.
As the Spotify Wrapped lesson warned, audiences want to feel seen and understood by you, not by your algorithm. The winners will be those using AI as a behind-the-scenes enabler, so seamlessly integrated that attendees never think about it. They just notice that their experience felt remarkably considered.
That’s especially true for the audiences reshaping the industry. Gen Z will make up 70% of the global workforce by 2030 and 94% of Gen Z and millennials say they prefer brands with a sense of humour. Gamification boosts event engagement by 150% compared to traditional formats, a strong signal that the future of AI-enhanced events isn’t just more personalised, it’s also more playful.
Data on storytelling sheds another important light on approach. 62% of B2B marketers find storytelling effective and 55% of customers who connect with a brand’s story are more likely to purchase. 94% of B2B marketers report that personalised engagement boosted sales. These are compelling arguments for using AI in service of authentic narratives rather than as a substitute for them.
The events industry is projected to reach $2.5 trillion globally by 2035. The technology powering it is growing even faster. But the most sophisticated AI in the world won’t make an event memorable. The human intent behind it will.
At asembl., we’ve always believed the most powerful events create genuine connections between people. AI is now one of the tools that helps us do that better, at scale, with more precision and care. What it will never be is a replacement for the judgment, creativity and human understanding that makes an event worth attending.
Ready to create events that use technology purposefully? Get in touch with the asembl. team to discuss how AI personalisation can enhance your next event, without replacing what makes it special.
Not read the asembl.trends 2026 report yet? Download it here.
AI personalisation in events uses artificial intelligence to tailor experiences to individual attendees, from personalised agendas and networking recommendations to accessible language tools and data-driven programme design. Done well, it removes friction and surfaces relevance so that human connections can happen more naturally. Done badly, it produces generic, algorithmically assembled experiences that feel impersonal despite the ‘personalised’ label.
The most established applications include attendee matchmaking, personalised agenda recommendations, real-time translation and captioning, automated check-in, and post-event analytics. According to industry data, 45% of event organisers are actively using AI to enhance operations and personalise attendee experiences, with adoption growing rapidly across agency and in-house teams.
As Spotify’s Wrapped 2024 demonstrated, over-reliance on AI can produce experiences that feel manufactured rather than considered, where ‘personalisation’ is sophisticated segmentation and audiences notice the difference. In events, the risk is acute when AI replaces human creative judgment rather than supports it: generic content, predictable formats and experiences that fail to resonate.
Real-time translation, automated captioning, and personalised communication formats all make events more accessible to international and neurodivergent attendees alike. With 1 in 7 people in the UK being neurodivergent and 85% having avoided events for fear of being overwhelmed, accessibility-focused AI applications have both an ethical and commercial imperative.
asembl. integrates event technology, including gamified event apps, attendee data analytics, and engagement tracking as part of a broader event strategy, not as a standalone feature. Our approach is always to use AI in service of the experience, ensuring that every digital touchpoint enhances, rather than interrupts, the human moments that make events memorable. If you’re unsure where the right balance lies for your event, we’re happy to help draw it.