The use of Artificial Intelligence has moved way beyond applications such as ChatGPT. AI-Agents can now not only define but also execute complex tasks, without any human intervention. While this offers great opportunities – especially in times when resources are scarce and budget limited – a successful implementation will require care planning and intensive change management.
Technology is high on the agenda of any conference at this moment, independently of the industry concerned. It was also a topic discussed in depth by the participants to the AIPC Sales and Marketing Summit, which took place just before the start of IMEX. And just as a side comment: the hotel I stayed in (NHow) actually uses a robot to deliver amenities like a toothbrush to the room – just imagine the surprise when you opening the door.
On a more serious note: the quickly evolving AI-landscape offers opportunities for associations which go well beyond what anybody imagined a couple of years ago. Using tools which are widely available and relatively easy to use, you can now identify potential members, based on profiles which are the results of data-mining on your CRM-system and have an outreach campaign defined and executed by one or more AI-agents. Work that would have taken weeks can now be done in hours.
This means that – longer term – the teams working at associations will become hybrid, with humans and AI-agents working alongside. From a leadership perspective, this has a number of implications. First of all, staff will require training to get the skills and capacities to use this technology. And while many leaders are very enthusiastic about the potential use of AI, the investment in training is still lacking in many industries. Just as an example: the use of AI in accounting & auditing could bring immense value and 85% of leaders in this sector are excited about it. But only 37% of accounting firms actively invest in training for their staff.
Secondly, to get the most out of these new teammates, leaders will need to start developing an operational playbook for integrating them into hybrid teams and a workforce strategy.
And thirdly and perhaps most importantly: a change management process will need to be set up which puts the human team members central. Putting in place new technology which can have a significant impact on the teams requires that the staff involved fully understands the context, the organizational goals, the strategy and the expectations vis-à-vis the staff in order to implement these changes successfully. Hereby, it is important to realize that people – both in their personal and professional lives – are confronted with an increasing amount of changes, which can result in “change fatigue” or reluctance to change, making it even more important to explain the rationale and benefits – also on individual level – related to AI.
Underlying, there is one thing to consider, especially for the events industry: we are and always will be human centric. So yes, while AI reduces the need for people to conduct mundane tasks, it also elevates the importance of high-value, human-led tasks. Ensuring that employees can continue to carry these latter tasks out not only sustains morale but also delivers differentiating value to your organisation, the superpower your competitors can’t simply download.
Sven Bossu, CEO, AIPC
