Planners got to see some AI tools in action at PCMA’s Convening Leaders last week, including a new live session summarization feature of Spark AI.
The power of generative AI to transform events — and possibly make planners redundant — was one of the hottest topics at the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) Convening Leaders 2024, held Jan. 7-10 in San Diego.
“It isn’t that AI is going to take your job,” said AI expert Nina Schick, who is also an entrepreneur, and author and speaker, during one of the opening general session keynotes, “The Future of Generative AI: Exploring the Benefits, Risks and How it Will Change the Human Experience.
“But somebody using AI will definitely take your job. So, as leaders, if you want to think about being innovative, being proactive, being ahead of this curve — absolutely start engaging with this technology.”
One quick, easy and possibly even free (for the basics, anyway) way to dip your toes into AI for events — and potentially save your job, if Schick is right — is to check out Spark AI, a generative AI tool created by Gevme in partnership with PCMA.
The events AI platform, rolled out in beta last spring and officially launched at IMEX America last fall, was trained on data from 2,000 planners, hotels and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and others in the industry. At Convening Leaders 2024 (CL24), Spark AI rolled out a new feature called Spark Takeaways — and PCMA released articles from the conference created using Spark’s live session summarization tool to show how it worked.
The new feature is designed to analyze streaming content in real time to distill down the key insights, then provide summaries and key takeaways to help attendees digest and remember the most important pieces of content. The new feature also provides “idea Clouds” to help attendees visualize those key ideas and connect them into themes. All of these session summaries, takeaways and idea clouds can be projected on a big screen in presentation mode, and also downloaded by attendees via QR code.
As Spark Author Veemal Gungadin said in a blog post on Sparkit.ai, “The session featuring President and Secretary Clinton was a landmark moment for us. As the session concluded, attendees were immediately presented with the key takeaways and Idea Cloud, visible on the big screen and accessible via a QR code for personal notetaking. This real-time showcase demonstrated the efficiency and impact of Spark Takeaways.” Those who want to get in early on this new feature can request access on the website.
While the new feature was certainly buzz-worthy at CL24, the full package offered by Spark AI was one many were eager to try out in on-site demos and tutorials during CL24 in San Diego. Each of the AI’s five event-specific categories — content creation, content repurposing, brainstorming, legal and analysis — come with tasks the platform can take off a planner’s plate, such as “generate session topics” or “create session polls” under the brainstorming categories. All the planner has to do it input the data needed for the AI to pull from, using the platform’s built-in task prompts.
It can also do everything from create content highlight reels, based on video, audio and text uploaded from the live event, to rewriting contracts to conform with industry standards. It also can repurpose a video of your keynote into everything from blog posts to educational sessions, so your staff can spend less time editing and transcribing and more time on more strategic tasks.
Planners can sign up for the free starter version of the platform that includes more than 40 tasks, including agenda creation, content repurposing, sentiment analysis and marketing assets. A Pro version with more customization and functionality is available for $19/user/month, and an Enterprise version also is available.
To learn more, go to https://www.sparkit.ai/.
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