The exhibition industry has long been a cornerstone of global commerce, a physical nexus where innovation, networking, and business converge. For decades, its fundamental model remained largely unchanged. Now, however, digital transformation is redefining every sector it touches. This is not merely about adopting new technologies; it’s a complete reimagining of how we create value, engage with stakeholders, and operate our businesses. My journey through an MSc in Digital Business (my thesis explored ‘Employee Attitude to Digital Transformation in the Exhibition Industry’) underscored this reality, revealing that at the heart of this profound change lies the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
For the exhibition industry, embracing this digital evolution is no longer an option – it is a critical imperative for survival and growth. AI offers us the capability to move beyond traditional methods and unlock unprecedented levels of efficiency, personalisation, and insight. From the back office to the show floor, AI is becoming the engine of the modern exhibition, empowering organisers to deliver more compelling and valuable experiences for exhibitors and attendees alike.
This article explores the tangible ways AI is being implemented across the key disciplines of our industry, at ISE and elsewhere, demonstrating how it is a strategic asset that is reshaping our future.
Trade Show Operations: The Pursuit of Seamless Execution
The logistical complexity of running a large-scale exhibition is immense. Trade show operations teams are the unsung heroes, managing everything from floor plans and logistics to security and on-site support. Historically, this has been a manual, labour-intensive process, prone to human error and inefficiencies. AI is now streamlining and automating these critical functions.
With AI, we have revolutionised ISE’s floor planning processes with advanced tools like interactive floor plans and real-time updates. The MapYourShow (MYS) platform, Builder, enables our show management team to efficiently handle exhibitor booth requests, optimise booth placements, and provide customised views for better decision-making. Features such as competitor and partner selection during booth applications, along with enhanced filtering capabilities, empower us to create strategic layouts. This helps us to streamline the planning process.
Furthermore, AI is enhancing on-site resource management. By using sensor data and predictive analytics, we can anticipate peak times for registration, catering, and security, allowing for dynamic staffing and resource allocation. This not only improves the visitor experience by reducing queues and bottlenecks but also leads to significant cost savings. AI-driven chatbots integrated into event apps can handle a vast number of routine queries, freeing up human staff to focus on more complex, high-value interactions.
Exhibit Sales and Marketing: From Cold Calls to Intelligent Connections
The sales cycle in the exhibition world has traditionally relied on established relationships and extensive manual outreach. While personal connection remains vital, AI is augmenting the sales and marketing process, making it smarter, more targeted, and more effective.
For exhibit sales teams, AI-powered CRM systems can analyse vast datasets – including past participation, industry trends, and even public company data – to identify high-potential leads. These platforms can score prospects based on their likelihood to convert, enabling sales teams to prioritise their efforts and tailor their pitches. Predictive analytics can even forecast which exhibitors are at risk of not returning, allowing account managers to intervene proactively with personalised retention strategies.
The ISE sales team is leveraging AI with two key tools within MapYourShow. The Sales Accelerator uses AI to help exhibitors identify top leads, expand their contact networks, and create personalised follow-up messages, boosting exhibitor ROI. Meanwhile, MYS Insights employs AI-driven analytics to predict event sales, identify at-risk exhibitors, and provide actionable benchmarks, enabling us to optimise revenue. These tools streamline operations, enhance decision-making, and elevate the overall trade show experience for organisers, exhibitors, and attendees alike.
On the marketing front, AI is the engine behind hyper-personalisation. Instead of generic email blasts, marketing teams can use AI to craft campaigns that resonate with specific exhibitor segments. An AI tool might identify that a tech start-up is more interested in lead generation tools, while a large manufacturer is focused on brand exposure. The marketing message, content, and call-to-action can be automatically tailored to these distinct needs, dramatically increasing engagement and conversion rates.
Attendee Acquisition and Management: Crafting Personalised Journeys
Attracting the right audience is the lifeblood of any exhibition. AI is transforming attendee acquisition from a broad-stroke marketing effort into a precise, data-driven science. By analysing demographic, behavioural, and professional data, AI algorithms can create detailed attendee personas. This allows marketing teams to run highly targeted digital advertising campaigns on platforms like LinkedIn and Google, ensuring that promotional content reaches the most relevant potential visitors.
The impact of AI extends well beyond acquisition. Once a visitor is registered, AI can begin crafting a personalised event journey. AI-driven recommendation engines, similar to those used by Netflix and Amazon, are becoming a cornerstone of modern event apps. These engines suggest which exhibitors to visit, which conference sessions to attend, and which networking opportunities to pursue, all based on the individual’s stated interests, professional profile, and real-time behaviour on the show floor.
This level of personalisation transforms the event from a passive experience into an active, curated journey. It helps attendees maximise attendees’ return on time, ensuring they connect with the people and products most relevant to their goals. For the organiser, it creates a stickier, more valuable event that fosters loyalty and encourages return visits.
Visitor Tools: The AI-Powered Event Companion
The on-site experience is being fundamentally enhanced by AI-powered tools that put a virtual assistant in every visitor’s pocket. The event app is evolving into an intelligent companion that guides, informs, and connects.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) enables sophisticated chatbots to answer complex questions in real-time, from “Where is the nearest coffee station? ” to “Which companies are showcasing robotics automation solutions?”
Together with AVIXA’s IT department, which uses ‘Ava’ for the InfoComm show, at ISE we have created ‘dAVe’ – an integrated chatbot that serves both exhibitors and attendees. dAVe is a cutting-edge AI assistant integrated into the official ISE app. Designed to enhance the experience for both exhibitors and attendees, dAVe serves as a versatile guide for navigating the ISE website and the bustling showfloor.
Key features of dAVe include:
- Instant Information Access: Providing quick and accurate responses any questions about the show
- Point-to-Point Wayfinding: Attendees input their current location and desired destination within the venue; dAVe maps out the most efficient route
- Exhibitor and Event Details: The chatbot helps users browse exhibitor information by technology sector or country and explore the event programme, filtered by date, time, or type
- Personalised Assistance: Supporting users in creating custom agendas, bookmarking events, and even networking with other attendees
- Interactive Engagement: Facilitating direct chats with exhibitors and providing recommendations for relevant sessions or exhibitors based on user interests.
Overall, dAVe transforms the ISE experience into a streamlined, user-friendly journey. During ISE 2025, dAVe was a hit among visitors and exhibitors alike.
Making Meaningful Connections
Perhaps the most powerful AI-driven visitor tool is intelligent matchmaking. By analysing the profiles of all attendees and exhibitors, AI platforms can facilitate meaningful connections.
At ISE we have adopted Exhibitly (Exhibitly.ai) to personalise the visitor experience. This creates a bespoke set of pages by indexing all the appropriate content on ISE website, then matching relevant content, features and exhibitors with prospective visitors.
Exhibitly creates a visitor experience tailored to the user’s specific company and job title. The tool searches the company website to gain context around the user’s role and presents a customised AI-generated personalised introduction to ISE. It also presents a personalised list of recommended Content Programme sessions and a personalised list of recommended exhibitors. Finally it gives a call to action to register to ISE 2026.
The next step will be Augmented Reality (AR) wayfinding, guided by overlay digital directions onto a user’s smartphone camera view, making navigation intuitive and effortless. An attendee can receive a curated list of individuals to meet, complete with suggested meeting times and locations. This AI-facilitated networking is a powerful value proposition, directly addressing a primary reason people attend trade shows: to build their professional network.
Data Usage, IT, and Administration: The Intelligent Core
Underpinning all these advancements is the strategic use of data, managed by forward-thinking IT and administrative teams. The exhibition industry generates a colossal amount of data, from registration details and app usage to sensor data on visitor movement. In the past, much of this data was siloed or left unanalysed. My MSc in Digital Business emphasised that data is the fuel for digital transformation, and AI is the engine that converts that fuel into actionable intelligence.
AI-powered business intelligence (BI) platforms can synthesise data from disparate sources to provide a holistic view of event performance. Dashboards can display real-time KPIs, track attendee engagement, and measure exhibitor ROI. This allows organisers to make data-driven decisions not just for future events, but dynamically during the live event itself.
From an administrative perspective, AI is automating routine tasks, freeing up human capital for more strategic work. AI can process invoices, manage supplier contracts, and even handle initial customer service enquiries. This drive for efficiency reduces operational overhead and minimises the risk of human error. The IT infrastructure itself is also becoming smarter, with AI monitoring network performance, predicting potential issues, and enhancing cybersecurity protocols to protect sensitive exhibitor and attendee data.
Conclusion: A New Blueprint for the Future
The integration of AI into the exhibition industry is not a distant vision; it is happening now. It represents the most significant leap forward for our sector in a generation. As my studies in Digital Business confirmed, successful transformation is about more than just technology – it’s about a shift in mindset. It requires us to see our events not as static, four-day occurrences, but as dynamic platforms for engagement that exist 365 days a year, powered by data and intelligence.
ISE is embracing AI to enhance operations and improve experiences for employees, attendees, and exhibitors. Currently, all ISE employees actively use Microsoft Copilot for meeting summaries and actionable recommendations, while ChatGPT is leveraged for generating documents, presentations, and information. AI also supports attendee show planning and marketing analysis, offering insights into engagement metrics.
Looking ahead, we plan to introduce an AI tool for personalised activity summaries based on attendee profiles, boosting registration conversion. Additionally, MYS will integrate AI for matchmaking and networking recommendations, and we are exploring Salesforce Einstein AI functionalities to further enhance our operations later this year.
AI gives us the tools to understand our customers – both exhibitors and attendees – on a deeper level than ever before. It allows us to move from a one-size-fits-all model to one that is deeply personalised and context-aware. It empowers us to operate with greater efficiency, make smarter decisions, and, ultimately, deliver more value.
The journey has just begun. As AI technology continues to evolve, so too will its applications within our industry. Those who embrace this intelligent evolution, who invest in the skills and infrastructure to leverage AI, will be the ones who lead the next chapter in the history of exhibitions. They will build events that are not only more profitable and efficient but also more meaningful, engaging, and indispensable for the communities they serve.