New tech trends to enhance events, conferences and meetings

Technology in the 21st century is advancing rapidly and this is great news for everyone who is involved in meetings, whether as an organiser or an attendee. The new tech will enable delegates and organisers to do their job more efficiently, which in turn will improve the attendees’ experience and increase productivity.

One of the latest tech trends is the Chatbot, which uses artificial intelligence to provide on-demand information for attendees in a simple text-based format. Chatbot computer programs can conduct conversations via audio or text methods, but because the voice interface isn’t as effective in a crowded environment, such as a meeting, the text-based system is emerging as a viable alternative.

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Chatbot building suites such as Morph.ai are suitable for a variety of situations, including events. They can engage meeting attendees, answer questions and gather feedback. The Chatbots can be deployed via messaging channels such as SMS, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, websites, Skype and live chat.

With advances in AI, the systems are becoming increasingly accurate in working out the sense and context of voice and text requests. This enables them to respond in a more human-like manner. The increase in voice-activated systems such as Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa are testament to the rapidly increasing capabilities of the systems.

Another up-and-coming tech trend is facial recognition technology. Algorithms are already able to calculate facial features, expressions, body shapes and hairstyles. The same technology deployed by Facebook, to recognise faces and suggest tags on photographs, can be used to reach a wider audience.

Attendees can tag their friends and the posts will show up in more event goers’ and their contacts’ feeds to enhance corporate networking. Facial recognition technology will also be used in future to improve check-in and security and even gauge the delegates’ moods by using their facial expressions and body language.

Artificial intelligence will also be used to enhance the delegates’ meeting experience. For example, an event app with an AI plug-in such as Grip could use attendees’ social media profiles to recommend the people they should meet, based on their interests. It could recommend conference sessions to attend, or products they should try.

Livestreaming can take a more important role at conferences, expanding your audience beyond the delegates. Colleagues who couldn’t attend in person will be able to attend the virtual conference, share the stream to others and invite people to join a Facebook Live event.

Following on from this, another new trend is crowdsourcing. Using technology such as Facebook Live and Periscope, attendees can broadcast their personal experiences of the conference and use a pre-determined event hashtag. Organisers can encourage delegates to use it when broadcasting their own personal experiences. This way, you can measure the results afterwards, as social media walls will show posts with your event’s hashtag.

As a result of recent hacking attacks on venues, events and individuals, increasing privacy protection will be paramount. International ransomware attacks have pointed to more sophisticated hacking activity, so cybercriminals have a potentially dangerous weapon at their fingertips.

Should they attempt to target events and conferences via the online registration system or a mobile event-related app in the future, more sophisticated security will be put in place to fight back.

In the interim, standard precautions, such as always using strong passwords, being aware of phishing scams, keeping virus protection up to date, using identity theft protection services and using multi-factor authentication services, should be followed.

&Meetings can help make sure you have the best venue for your meeting – it’s down to you to keep a lookout for the latest tech trends! For meeting rooms in London, phone us on 0800 073 0499 and we’ll be happy to help you through the booking process.