The Year the Tech Stopped Being Cute and Started Running the Show
Anyone paying even glancing attention to AI lately knows the vibe has changed. The big labs are firing off models like confetti cannons at a product launch, NVIDIA’s pulling in revenue that would make a sovereign nation blush, and every small business owner is wondering whether to feel excited or slightly nauseous. Inside the events industry, the place where creativity crashes into logistics at 100 mph—we’re standing in a particularly strange and electric moment. The tools are finally catching up to the ambitions. AI isn’t just MacGyvering slide decks or whispering speaker introductions anymore. It’s starting to quietly take over the parts of our world that used to swallow human hours whole. As an AV pro who’s been elbow-deep in both production and AI strategy for years, here’s the pulse as it feels from the ground: We’ve crossed into the “post-gimmick era.” This is where AI starts delivering actual ROI, not the “look, a talking chatbot” gimmicks vendors slapped onto their booths in 2023. And it’s arriving exactly when small businesses and event teams need leverage more than ever.The Compute Arms Race Is Fueling an Events Revolution
When NVIDIA casually announces $57 billion in quarterly revenue, you realize something: infrastructure isn’t just booming. It’s exploding. And all that hardware muscle isn’t being built for research papers. It’s being built so your workflows, your teams, your clients, your productions can run on AI agents that actually work. OpenAI signs a $38B deal with AWS. Microsoft and NVIDIA throw $15B at Anthropic’s training roadmap. China bans foreign chips in state-funded data centers. The entire world is hoarding compute like it’s gold. Why should event pros care? Because the muscles behind generative workflows, automation, and real-time decisioning are getting freakishly strong. In plain speak: Your future show-caller, your ops assistant, your content team, your exhibitor concierge, your registration support, soon they won’t just be AI-enhanced. They’ll be AI-powered and AI-run. This isn’t sci-fi. It’s configuration.Agentic AI Is the Real Story
Forget models arguing over benchmark scores. The frontier isn’t “who’s 2% better at math.” It’s agentic AI,systems that can actually do things. Search your inbox Draft your comms Update your run-of-show Project-manage your speaker deliverables Rewrite your exhibitor portal Book travel Pull invoices Tell your LED tech what went wrong and how to fix it The November AI launches (Grok 4.1, Gemini 3, Claude Opus 4.5) weren’t flexes. They were a signal:“These models aren’t chatbots anymore. They’re workers.”And for small businesses, and especially event operations, which live inside deadline-driven chaos, this matters more than any other industry I track. We’re staring at a new category emerging: AI Production Assistants. AI Avatars & Show-callers. AI Exhibitor Managers. AI Ops Coordinators. The moment these agents get wrapped in stable interfaces, we’re going to see the largest productivity jump the events world has ever recorded.
Event Tech Is Finally Reacting
Event platforms spent years duct-taping AI onto existing features. 2025 is different. Real movement is happening:- Predictive attendee behavior modeling (useful enough to stop overordering biscuits at break stations).
- Auto-generated booth content, exhibitor assets, and marketing kits.
- AI-driven agendas that balance interests, flow, and FOMO reduction.
- Production automation—from cue sheets to real-time camera switching.
- AI content studios native within event apps.
- Smart routing and logistics that can reroute staff, volunteers, and equipment on the fly.
- AI-run registration and concierge desks running 24/7 with no overtime pay.
Small Businesses Stand to Gain the Most
This part makes me a little emotional because I see it in the field every single week. Small businesses are tired. Budgets are tight. Teams are tiny. Expectations are massive. AI is finally tipping the scales back in your favor. Where a corporate giant throws humans at problems, a small business can throw agents. Where a large event team throws 50 emails at a workflow, you’ll throw one. Where everyone fought to “scale” by adding headcount, you’ll scale by adding intelligence. This is the democratization everyone promised in 2023. It just took two years to grow the legs for the sprint.The Bottom Line
2025–26 will be the biggest transformation year the events industry has ever lived through. We’re not adopting tools, we’re adopting co-workers. The question is no longerThe Year the Tech Stopped Being Cute and Started Running the Show
Anyone paying even glancing attention to AI lately knows the vibe has changed. The big labs are firing off models like confetti cannons at a product launch, NVIDIA’s pulling in revenue that would make a sovereign nation blush, and every small business owner is wondering whether to feel excited or slightly nauseous. Inside the events industry, the place where creativity crashes into logistics at 100 mph—we’re standing in a particularly strange and electric moment. The tools are finally catching up to the ambitions. AI isn’t just MacGyvering slide decks or whispering speaker introductions anymore. It’s starting to quietly take over the parts of our world that used to swallow human hours whole. As an AV pro who’s been elbow-deep in both production and AI strategy for years, here’s the pulse as it feels from the ground: We’ve crossed into the “post-gimmick era.” This is where AI starts delivering actual ROI—not the “look, a talking chatbot” gimmicks vendors slapped onto their booths in 2023. And it’s arriving exactly when small businesses and event teams need leverage more than ever.The Compute Arms Race Is Fueling an Events Revolution
When NVIDIA casually announces $57 billion in quarterly revenue, you realize something: infrastructure isn’t just booming. It’s exploding. And all that hardware muscle isn’t being built for research papers. It’s being built so your workflows, your teams, your clients, your productions can run on AI agents that actually work. OpenAI signs a $38B deal with AWS. Microsoft and NVIDIA throw $15B at Anthropic’s training roadmap. China bans foreign chips in state-funded data centers. The entire world is hoarding compute like it’s gold. Why should event pros care? Because the muscles behind generative workflows, automation, and real-time decisioning are getting freakishly strong. In plain speak: Your future showcaller, your ops assistant, your content team, your exhibitor concierge, your registration support, soon they won’t just be AI-enhanced. They’ll be AI-powered and AI-run. This isn’t sci-fi. It’s configuration.Agentic AI Is the Real Story
Forget models arguing over benchmark scores. The frontier isn’t “who’s 2% better at math.” It’s agentic AI,systems that can actually do things. Search your inbox Draft your comms Update your run-of-show Project-manage your speaker deliverables Rewrite your exhibitor portal Book travel Pull invoices Tell your LED tech what went wrong and how to fix it The November AI launches (Grok 4.1, Gemini 3, Claude Opus 4.5) weren’t flexes. They were a signal:“These models aren’t chatbots anymore. They’re workers.”And for small businesses, and especially event operations, which live inside deadline-driven chaos, this matters more than any other industry I track. We’re staring at a new category emerging: AI Production Assistants. AI Avatars & Show-callers. AI Exhibitor Managers. AI Ops Coordinators. The moment these agents get wrapped in stable interfaces, we’re going to see the largest productivity jump the events world has ever recorded.
Event Tech Is Finally Reacting
Event platforms spent years duct-taping AI onto existing features. 2025 is different. Real movement is happening:- Predictive attendee behavior modeling (useful enough to stop overordering biscuits at break stations).
- Auto-generated booth content, exhibitor assets, and marketing kits.
- AI-driven agendas that balance interests, flow, and FOMO reduction.
- Production automation—from cue sheets to real-time camera switching.
- AI content studios native within event apps.
- Smart routing and logistics that can reroute staff, volunteers, and equipment on the fly.
- AI-run registration and concierge desks running 24/7 with no overtime pay.
Small Businesses Stand to Gain the Most
This part makes me a little emotional because I see it in the field every single week. Small businesses are tired. Budgets are tight. Teams are tiny. Expectations are massive. AI is finally tipping the scales back in your favor. Where a corporate giant throws humans at problems, a small business can throw agents. Where a large event team throws 50 emails at a workflow, you’ll throw one. Where everyone fought to “scale” by adding headcount, you’ll scale by adding intelligence. This is the democratization everyone promised in 2023. It just took two years to grow the legs for the sprint.The Bottom Line
2025–26 will be the biggest transformation year the events industry has ever lived through. We’re not adopting tools—we’re adopting co-workers. The question is no longer “Will AI change events?” It’s “How fast will you let it change yours?” And if you’re a small business or event team? This is your leverage moment. This is the year you stop duct-taping solutions and start building systems that actually scale. The tech is ready. The compute is ready. The models are ready. And everything about the work we do, in AV, in production, in planning, is begging for reinvention. We’re not standing on a trend line. We’re standing on a fault line. And the shift is already rumbling under our feet.Equipping professionals to turn AI into practical wins and human-centered results, without losing the human touch. https://www.ancaplatontrifan.me/ ? .
