Why Your Booth Does Not Need AI — But Your Event Program Does

At nearly every event that I attend lately someone asks: How do you recommend using AI at events?

• It probably doesn’t need an AI avatar.
• It probably doesn’t need a giant screen or graphic announcing that the booth is “AI-powered.”
• And it doesn’t need AI just because everyone else is talking about AI.
• The only exception should be obvious, if your product is AI technology and it is related back to your product!

But your event strategy probably does need AI. And that is the real conversation.

After years in the trade show business, I’ve seen plenty of ideas get added to booths because they were shiny, trendy, expensive, or because someone saw something similar at another show and said, “We should do that.” Sometimes those ideas work. Sometimes they become a very expensive thing everyone walks around on their way to somewhere else.

The real opportunity for AI in events is not to make booths look more futuristic or seem like you are on top of the latest technology unless AI is your product. It is making the entire event program smarter, more intentional, and more measurable. Even if your product is AI technology this is a great way to harness the power of AI to make your program better!

Start with better decisions, not better gadgets.

The first question is simple: are you exhibiting at the right shows?

I posed this question in a recent post and here is a way to evaluate your event portfolio. Just because a company has exhibited at the same show for 15 years does not automatically mean it should exhibit there for year number 16. History is not a strategy. Sometimes it is just a habit with a booth number.

AI can help teams analyze an event portfolio against target accounts, audience quality, historical performance, pipeline influence, and total cost. It can help identify which shows are truly moving the business forward and which ones are being protected mainly because nobody wants to be the person who suggests skipping them.

Sometimes the smartest answer is not “do more.” It is to exhibit at fewer shows and do a much better job at the ones that matter.

Traffic is not the same as success.

That don’t impress me much when someone says, “We had 5,000 people visit the booth.”

So you had a lot of traffic? How many of them were people you wanted to talk to? How many were in your target audience?

I would rather have 100 meaningful conversations with the right people than 5,000 visitors who grabbed a giveaway, nodded politely, and disappeared into the aisle like trade show ghosts. AI can help identify priority accounts, segment audiences, personalize pre-show outreach, and guide teams toward the conversations that support business goals. More traffic is not necessarily more success. Better traffic is.

Personalization is where AI gets interesting.

This is where AI can become genuinely useful. What if the experience changed based on who walked into your exhibit?

A CIO should not necessarily have the same conversation as a technical buyer. An existing customer should not necessarily have the same experience as a prospect. A partner should not get the same content as a competitor’s customer.

AI can help connect people to the right content, the right expert, and the right conversation. That is not technology for technology’s sake. That is just good sales and marketing.

Make your sales team smarter before you make your booth louder.

Imagine a salesperson getting a notification five minutes before a meeting: here is everything you need to know about this account.

Previous conversations. Current opportunities. Key contacts. Recent news. Potential pain points. Recommended questions. Relevant content. Leverage the strength of your CRM and AI to create meaningful help for your staff.

Then, after the meeting, AI helps turn the conversation into follow-up notes, next steps, and CRM updates. Suddenly, AI is not sitting in the booth trying to entertain people. It helps your team have better conversations.

Now that is powerful. And to be blunt, it is a lot more useful than another screen saver with floating particles and the word “innovation” in 72-point type.

Stop measuring events like its 1999.

“We scanned 2,743 badges.” Fantastic. Now what?

Which accounts mattered? Which conversations showed intent? Which experiences worked? Which messages resonated? Which meetings turned into opportunities? What should change next time?

AI gives event marketers the opportunity to move from event reporting to event intelligence. That is the real opportunity. Not a better badge scan report. A better understanding of what happened, why it mattered, and what to do next.

… Do not use AI because it is cool. Use it if it makes the experience better, the decisions smarter, or the outcomes stronger. Otherwise, save money for something else that will produce ROI like a better experiential activation at the event. Seriously. People will remember that more than AI for AI sake.

The future of events is not about replacing human experience with technology. It is about using technology to make human experience more relevant, more personal, and more valuable.

After reading an early draft of this post, Chrissy Martino from Together AI framed it perfectly:

That is the AI conversation I want to have with event professionals. Not, “How do we put AI in your booth?” but “Where are we leaving opportunity on the table, and how can AI help us capture it?”

Now that is an interesting conversation. What do you think?  What did I miss?  Please add your thoughts in the comments to help us all better using AI for trade shows and event programs!

About the Author.

Dave Brull is the Vice President, Global Accounts at Kubik. He has over 20 years of integrated sales and marketing experience including partnering on experiential activations across the globe for brands such as Johnson Controls, HP Inc., Microsoft, Philips, and Verizon. He brings a unique viewpoint since he has worked for brands, associations, and agencies over the course of his career. He also sits on the BOD of The Exhibitor Advocate Association and the Advisory Board for the Global Association of Customer Engagement Professionals (GACEP).