Latest news with #Cvent
Skift
3 days ago
- Business
- Skift
Cvent's AI Makeover Targets Planners, Hotels, and the Future of Sourcing
The launch of CventIQ represents a significant bet on AI becoming the backbone of Cvent's entire ecosystem, predictable buzzwords included. Cvent has launched CventIQ, embedding AI across its event management and sourcing ecosystem. At the Skift Meetings Forum last September, Aggarwal acknowledged that the company had lagged in AI innovation. At that point, Cvent only offered AI through writing assistants and basic integrations. The new updates represent a significant expansion of AI capabilities across the platform. The reveal was the main focus of its Cvent CONNECT hybrid conference that drew 10,000 attendees to San Antonio last week. This was the conference's second year in the Texan city, but it will move to Nashville in 2026. Innovative Sessions Snapshots Among the new AI-powered mentioned in Aggarwal's keynote, "session snapshots" stood out as particularly innovative. This feature works through the Cvent mobile app, where attendees can view a live transcript of session content. When they hear something noteworthy, they tap the screen to bookmark that moment. The AI automatically generates a note from that section and saves it. The system collects saved snapshots together and then aggregates them into personalized highlight reels and daily session summaries. The snapshots feature is intriguing and potentially a game changer because it uses proven AI technology for transcribing and summarizing content in a clever way. Beyond integrating it into the main event app, Cvent is empowering attendees to personalize takeaways, rather than leaving the summarizing entirely to AI. If the system works and organizers promote app downloads, this should improve the personalized summaries and make attendees more likely to use them due to the IKEA Effect, which suggests people place higher value on things they help create. This feature could prove popular and generate valuable data for planners, provided it works well and attendees embrace the technology. Understanding when a session resonates is key to demonstrating its value, while pinpointing the most interesting discussion points should generate uniquely useful follow-ups for attendees. Navigating Sales CventIQ is not only enhancing content consumption but also boosting the Cvent Supplier Network (CSN) capabilities, a platform used by more than 200,000 planners to source 48 million room nights worth $18 billion in 2024. Targeting CSN's valuable planner user base feels similar to using LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Sales teams see comprehensive planner overviews with event details and the entire organization. They can search for planners that are a good match for the property or for those sourcing in competing markets. AI can generate email notifications with a list of recommended planners and help craft a relevant message instantly. The Cvent Event Marketing & Management Platform connects with LinkedIn's marketing tools, enabling planners to share their database of potential event attendees to serve ads to on LinkedIn. Boosting Property Appeal and Response Speed CventIQ features extensively throughout Cvent's used of 3D content. The platform now offers a full 3D immersive visualization of event setups at each property, using Matterport technology for property layout viewing and its own 3D room diagrams powered by Social Tables. The result is a Google Street View-like property listing that it is actively promoting. 'Investing in 3D rich meeting content is truly table stakes for being considered for high-value RFPs,' said Julide Tyrell, senior director, sales, hospitality cloud, Cvent. 3D is embedded in room diagrams with an AI-powered Diagram Assistant feature that allows planners to visualize rooms in various layouts through natural language conversations. This functionality is linked to pre-populated AI-generated proposals that sales teams can create almost instantly. Cvent wants sales teams to know that response speed is key to winning bids. Cvent said 79% of RFPs are won by the first 3 hotel responses and that using Cvent's new AI Response Assistant, sales teams can reduce proposal creation time to 81 min, which beats the average first response time of four hours and 10 minutes. Fast responses also trigger a 'Top Responder' icon, adding visibility to properties investing in these tools. The battle for planner attention on CSN is fast-paced, and using AI is becoming necessary to keep up. Smaller properties with limited resources will struggle, but fast movers embracing CventIQ should be ahead, at least for now. To balance the focus on automation and speed, Aggarwal reassured attendees that Cvent believes in a human-led future. Cvent is providing opportunities for properties to gain more visibility in CSN not only through 3D immersion and AI-generated proposals. Cvent announced a 'Sustainability certified' icon for listings to showcase sustainability initiatives, driven by a partnership with BeCause. The Bigger Picture Amid the updates and new features, some seem basic and overdue, like custom pages in the exhibitor portal for FAQs. Yet, among the mundane, there are tools that are part of a bigger picture. The most significant update is Cvent Essentials, a simplified, low-cost, pay-as-you-go version of the Cvent Event Marketing & Management Platform. The product is designed to bring smaller events — including field marketing events — into the Cvent ecosystem. Cvent wants their larger clients to use the platform for all their simpler events, so these events can contribute data to each client's central hub, 'Events+.' Cvent also announced Cvent Passkey Rooming List Essentials, a simplified version of the Cvent Passkey room block management software, aimed at smaller hotel properties. Simplified Cvent tools may not feel revolutionary, but they're essential for a complete strategic meetings management program. Large companies can roll out Cvent across different teams and geographies with varying resources, all on-brand with strict guardrails. The same applies to hotels and venues, where large chains and properties likely already use Cvent for RFPs. Now smaller properties can interface with planners using standardized room block tools. Some announcements reveal integration of recent acquisitions into Cvent platforms. The AI-powered attendance insights feature from Splash is now integrated into Cvent, predicting final registration numbers four weeks out. Jifflenow's meetings management and Reposite vendor marketplace are integrated, with vendors partnering with a property featured in the property's CSN listing, boosting visibility. Cvent appears to have made good use of its 200 staff dedicated to AI, with CventIQ's AI upgrades visible across most of the Cvent ecosystem.
Tourism Breaking News
4 days ago
- Business
- Tourism Breaking News
Cvent brings Intelligence and AI to life across its platform with the launch of CventIQ
Post Views: 13 Cvent announced the launch of CventIQ which combines powerful AI capabilities with deep industry expertise, proprietary insights and analytics, a smart platform, and intelligent infrastructure to help marketers, event planners, and hospitality professionals move faster and smarter, collaborate better, and deliver more engaging, high-return experiences. Cvent CEO Reggie Aggarwal unveiled CventIQ during his opening keynote address at Cvent CONNECT recently. 'CventIQ enhances every aspect of the Cvent platform, and it represents our vision for a more efficient, intelligent, and collaborative future for meetings and events,' said Aggarwal. 'By infusing advanced AI into the tools our customers already use, we're empowering them to deliver more engaging events, more efficiently, with greater returns. Our launch of CventIQ reflects how we're bringing trustworthy, practical AI to every corner of our platform so our customers can stay ahead of today's fast-evolving landscape while remaining focused on what truly drives impact: human connection.'
Forbes
13-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Event Professionals Finally Get Real Audience Intelligence
Conference organizers, keynote speakers, and other event professionals have spent decades trying to learn what resonates with audiences. Surveys, either post-presentation or post-event, often have low response rates. Thoughtfully completed questionnaire responses are even more rare and usually lack granularity to evaluate specific content elements. Tools like biometric monitoring and facial expression analysis are interesting, but haven't gained much traction in the event space. As a speaker, I can tell when an audience responds to something I said. Individuals look more focused, increase eye contact, start writing notes, or raise their phone to take a photo of a slide. At the end of an hour on stage, though, I'd be hard pressed to give a minute-by-minute account of audience engagement. Now an innovation from event technology company Cvent provides something event professionals have never had: real-time data on exactly which moments spark audience interest. The concept, part of CventIQ 'AI for events,' is straightforward. As I described in my previous article, attendees use their event app to view a live, real-time transcript of what the speaker is saying. When they hear something they want to remember, they click a button to save a 'snapshot' of what the speaker said. A future iteration of the app will also capture the associated visual (e.g., a PowerPoint slide), if any. Snapshots are saved, then labeled and summarized by AI for easier reference later. This concept greatly simplifies note-taking for attendees. Here's the interesting part for conference organizers and speakers: each tap creates a data point showing precisely when audiences engage most deeply with presentations. "Planners are going to be able to see what people are interested in across all the rooms," explains McNeel Keenan, Cvent's VP of Product Management. "You can start to see what topics are trending." This creates what behavioral economists call "revealed preference" data. Instead of asking people what they found valuable, you observe what they actually choose to save. Actions matter more than opinions. Most conference feedback suffers from fundamental flaws. Surveys depend on memory and arrive after the moment has passed. Response rates are typically low. Respondents often provide socially acceptable answers rather than honest reactions. Rarely do they capture granular information about specific topics or moments in a presentation. The digital snapshot approach sidesteps these limitations entirely. Attendees naturally want to capture valuable insights. They aren't completing a survey to help the organizer, they are saving information they find useful. Response rates could potentially approach 100% once attendees are familiar with the app and recognize its potential to create recurring value from the event. The most intriguing possibility involves adjusting presentations based on live audience data. Conference organizers could redirect afternoon sessions based on morning patterns. An opening keynote speaker could adjust the content of her afternoon breakout session. Multi-day events could use first-day results to juggle content on the following day or days. "You can start to see what topics are trending, which speakers are your experts," Keenan notes. "Who are your best experts on a topic that not only get good survey responses, but get engagement in the room?" This real-time feedback loop has never existed before. Traditional audience measurement tools provide data too slowly to influence current events. The aggregated snapshot data creates new insights into content performance across multiple dimensions. Organizers can identify which speakers consistently generate engagement. They can spot topics that resonate across different audience segments. They can even detect when presentations run too long by watching engagement patterns drop. The technology could even aggregate insights across events. Patterns will emerge about what works for specific industries, job functions, or experience levels. This intelligence could add major value to organizations planning future events. Consider the strategic advantages: Speaker Selection: Data shows which presenters generate genuine audience interest vs. high survey scores or impressive credentials. Content Development: Topics that consistently drive engagement become obvious choices for future programming. Schedule Optimization: Time slots and session lengths can be adjusted based on when audiences engage most actively. ROI Measurement: Organizations can quantify content value by measuring sustained audience engagement rather than relying on attendance numbers alone. Most conference programming relies on educated guesses about audience preferences. Planners choose speakers based on reputation, topics based on trends, and formats based on tradition. The results vary wildly. Objective engagement data removes much of this uncertainty. Instead of wondering whether a keynote resonated, organizers can see exactly which segments generated the most interest. Instead of guessing about breakout session effectiveness, they can compare engagement levels across concurrent sessions. Looking beyond individual events, organizations running multiple conferences could identify content that works across different audiences. Trade associations could spot emerging topics before they become obvious trends. Unlike biometric monitoring or facial expression analysis systems, the snapshot approach raises minimal privacy concerns. Attendees consciously choose when to capture content. No sensitive data gets collected, only anonymous engagement patterns. Implementation requires no special equipment or complex setup. The technology works through standard event apps that many organizations already use. Speakers present normally without additional requirements or training. Snapshot data has great potential, but I can see some situations where it might not provide a measure of engagement. A motivational speaker who tells mesmerizing stories might have tremendous audience engagement but few snapshots during a keynote. A boring speaker presenting lots of quantitative data or lists might get far more snapshots simply because that kind of information is hard to remember or even fully analyze in the moment. Cvent will continue to offer targeted surveys in its app to provide another way to evaluate speakers and content. Another problem I see is that to use the snapshots the audience member needs to have their phone turned on and the app opened. Tapping the snapshot button is minimally distracting, but an opened phone in hand could be seductive. The temptation to check messages, see what the latest notification is, etc. could pull audience members away from the live speaker. If a speaker sees lots of people look down at their phones, are they taking a snapshot or just bored? If this approach becomes widely adopted, speakers might learn to manipulate snapshots. If I'm on the stage and say, 'If you remember one thing from today, it's ____," I'm sure lots of audience members would tap the snapshot button as a precaution. FOMO works. Then again, if speakers focus on creating 'snapshottable' moments, it might be a good thing for everyone. The technology could actually pressure speakers to focus on practical, actionable content rather than bland, general advice. When audience engagement becomes measurable, content quality becomes more important than speaking credentials alone. The revealed preference concept applies far beyond conferences. Webinars, training sessions, and internal meetings could all benefit from similar engagement tracking. Any situation where audience attention matters becomes an opportunity for optimization. The broader trend points toward more sophisticated audience intelligence across all forms of business communication. Just as web analytics transformed digital marketing, engagement analytics could reshape live events. Conference organizers have operated with limited audience intelligence for decades. They've relied on imperfect surveys, small focus groups, and speaker evaluations to guide programming decisions. Real-time engagement data offers a new way to optimize content on the fly and plan future events. Snapshots are one small step in changing conference programming from art to science.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cvent CONNECT Draws Thousands of Event Professionals, Marketers and Hoteliers to San Antonio, Announces Nashville as Host City for 2026
With heightened interest in unique destinations, Cvent leans into new locales to celebrate the powerful combination of local influence and experiences to deliver more impactful events SAN ANTONIO & NASHVILLE, Tenn., June 12, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cvent, a global industry-leading meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider, announced that its 2026 customer and industry conference, Cvent CONNECT, will be hosted in Nashville, Tennessee, from July 13-16. Following two successful years in San Antonio, Texas, during which the conference brought an estimated $13 million in direct economic impact to the city, Cvent CONNECT has continued to grow and is expected to see increased interest in 2026 due to its new location. With its highly influential audience of event professionals, marketers, and hoteliers, Cvent CONNECT often drives sustained economic value for host cities — sparking increased interest, tourism, and future event bookings long after the conference concludes. Cvent CONNECT is one of the leading event and hospitality technology conferences in the world, bringing together thousands of event professionals, marketers and hoteliers to network with their peers, explore cutting-edge technology and learn actionable strategies to accelerate event ROI and boost group business revenue. Registration for Cvent CONNECT 2026 is available here. "As one of the top conferences in the meetings, events and hospitality space, we understand the importance of providing this discerning audience with an unforgettable experience," said Rachel Andrews, Senior Director, Global Meetings & Events at Cvent. "We're incredibly grateful to the team at Visit San Antonio for their unwavering support and hospitality over the last two years and we're excited for what's next in 2026. As a long-time Top Meeting Destination, Nashville's vibrant culture, rich musical heritage, exceptional hotels, and unique event venues make it the perfect backdrop for our conference. We're thrilled to start planning next year's event and can't wait to welcome our thousands of attendees to explore a new city and enjoy all that Nashville has to offer." "We're thrilled to welcome Cvent CONNECT to Nashville in 2026," said Deana Ivey, President and CEO, Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. "There's no greater endorsement of our city's appeal for meetings than hosting thousands of the industry's top planners. This is an invaluable opportunity for us to showcase our new offerings, diverse venues, seamless citywide experience, and the authentic hospitality that makes Nashville a standout destination. We look forward to forging new partnerships and inspiring future business. We are confident that Cvent CONNECT 2026 will leave attendees inspired and eager to return." More About Nashville From the moment attendees arrive, they'll be immersed in the creative energy and welcoming spirit that define Music City. Nashville is uniquely equipped to host meetings of every scale, offering two premier convention centers—Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center and the Music City Center in the heart of downtown —each delivering world-class service and flexibility. The city effortlessly blends business and pleasure with top-tier hotels, award-winning dining, distinctive venues, and live music that spans every genre. Nashville is more than a meeting location—it's a destination that leaves a lasting impression. Learn more about all that Nashville offers for Cvent CONNECT attendees here. About Cvent Cvent is a leading meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider with 5,000+ employees and ~24,000+ customers worldwide as of December 31, 2024. Founded in 1999, the company delivers a comprehensive event marketing and management platform and offers a global marketplace where event professionals collaborate with venues to create engaging, impactful experiences. Cvent is headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C., and has additional offices around the world to support its growing global customer base. The comprehensive Cvent event marketing and management platform offers software solutions to event organizers and marketers for online event registration, venue selection, event marketing and management, virtual and onsite solutions, and attendee engagement. Cvent's suite of products automates and simplifies the event management lifecycle and maximizes the impact of in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. Hotels and venues use Cvent's supplier and venue solutions to win more group and corporate travel business through Cvent's sourcing platforms. Cvent solutions optimize the event management value chain and have enabled clients around the world to manage millions of meetings and events. For more information, please visit About The Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp and Visit Music City The mission of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp and Visit Music City is to maximize the economic contribution of the convention and tourism industry to the community by developing and marketing Nashville as a premier destination. Visit the NCVC's website at and follow us on social media @VisitMusicCity. View source version on Contacts Media Contacts: Cvent Erica Stoltenbergestoltenberg@ Nashville Media Contact Heather Middletonheather@
Forbes
10-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Cvent App May End Bad Conference Notes And Blurry Screen Photos
AI-driven text capture and summarization technology from Cvent can replace most traditional ... More conference note-taking. Picture this: You're sitting in a dimly lit conference room or convention ballroom, listening to a speaker who has something interesting to say. You are frantically scribbling notes while trying to photograph slides displayed on a distant screen. Later, back at your hotel, you're squinting at blurry photos and deciphering handwriting that looks like it was written during an earthquake. Sound familiar? This frustrating ritual is repeated millions of times at business events worldwide. The good news is that it may finally be obsolete thanks to a breakthrough from event technology company Cvent. Today, I saw a new product in use at their annual Cvent Connect conference in San Antonio. In a packed ballroom with thousands of attendees, the company demonstrated a major advance in conference note-taking. Cvent's new feature transforms the traditional note-taking experience through real-time speech transcription combined with intelligent content capture. Attendees can now see a live, accurate transcript of the speaker's words directly in the event app. Amazingly, there was virtually zero lag between spoken words and displayed text. Seeing the text appear as the words came out of the speakers's mouth seemed almost magical at first. Here's how it solves most of the note-taking problem: instead of frantically writing illegible script, attendees simply tap a button when they hear something worth remembering. The system automatically captures not just that moment, but a full minute of the speaker's words. "Instead of scribbling notes on a notepad, they're just clicking a button," explains McNeel Keenan, Cvent's VP of Product Management. "We capture the last 40 seconds, and since maybe that speaker hasn't finished their point yet, we're going to capture the next 20 seconds." Raw transcripts aren't particularly helpful buried in a phone app weeks later. That's where artificial intelligence transforms captured content into something genuinely useful. The system automatically generates concise summaries of each captured segment and creates descriptive labels, eliminating the need for attendees to organize their own notes. "We use AI to make it valuable for the attendee," Keenan notes. "We summarize what was in that minute and we give it a little label so they don't have to label their own notes." The company plans to expand the feature to automatically capture whatever appears on screen when attendees hit the "snapshot" button—potentially ending the epidemic of blurry PowerPoint photos forever. No more stretching to photograph slides from the back of the room, or missing the slide completely because your phone went to sleep. From an attendee experience perspective, Cvent's innovation addresses a classic friction point that most people considerd unavoidable. Conference note-taking has remained stubbornly analog, creating unnecessary effort and often disappointing results. Writing notes and taking screen photos while trying to absorb complex information is far from ideal. The cognitive load of simultaneously listening, writing, and photographing content often means missing important nuances or connections. By eliminating the mechanical aspects of most note-taking, the new system allows attendees to focus entirely on listening and engaging with content. The technology reduces the effort required while improving the quality of preserved information. Early implementation at Cvent Connect demonstrated impressive technical performance. The transcription accuracy appeared remarkably high, even in a large venue with ambient noise, and the response time was virtually instantaneous. "I was amazed at how fast it was," Keenan observed. "It was coming in like 2 to 300 milliseconds, right behind the speaker." Perhaps more importantly, the system requires no additional effort from speakers or event organizers. Unlike previous attempts at presentation transcription that required speakers to use unfamiliar software or upload materials in advance, this event app-based solution works with any presentation style or technology setup. The new technology will also simplify the dreaded 'summarize for the boss' or 'share the highlights with the team' phase of the event. As Keenan explains, "When people get back to their office, they don't need to send a big email to their boss justifying the dollars they spent. They can share the key takeaways, they can share with their colleagues, and hopefully that'll be the reason that they get to bring two other colleagues next year." It's easy to imagine the app or its output being used to further distill the notes into useful summaries, even podcast-like audio overviews to be shared or used to refresh one's memory. I'd personally feed them to a model like Claude to suggest applications for the ideas, identify quick wins, etc. While the immediate benefit focuses on attendee experience, the technology creates something potentially more valuable: unprecedented insight into what actually resonates with audiences during presentations. As a speaker, I know when I see lots of audience members raise their phones to capture one of my slides that I've said something that resonates. What I can't do is remember later which slides got the most interest, much less quantify that attention. With this app, every time someone taps to save content, they're essentially voting for that moment as particularly valuable or interesting. This creates a real-time feedback loop that conference organizers and speakers have never had access to before. This revealed preference data represents a significant advance over traditional post-event surveys, which suffer from poor response rates and recall bias. Instead sketchy reports from a few attendees about what they found valuable, organizers can see exactly which moments sparked enough interest to warrant saving. The real test will be adoption and refinement of the technology as it scales beyond Cvent's own events. But for anyone who has ever returned from a conference with a collection of illegible notes and unusable photos, the promise is clear: better technology can preserve more value with significantly less effort. In a follow-up article, I'll explore how this seemingly simple innovation could reshape conference programming and speaker selection through the unprecedented audience engagement data it generates.
