February 02, 2026
Everyone is talking about what AI can do for event planning: organizers are using it to automate operational groundwork, from drafting marketing copy to analyzing attendee data. According to a recent study, roughly half of event planners currently use AI at some point in their process.
But what about what AI can’t do? Seasoned planners know how much effort goes into the high-stakes elements that shape a successful event, like accuracy, integrity, and personality—these need to stay firmly in human hands.
To successfully leverage AI for your event, it’s crucial to know exactly where its limits lie. Much like its application in other fields, AI can help shift your focus toward high-level creative strategy by automating busywork and sparking new ideas—while final judgment and human connection remains ultimately up to you.
Event management software are already incorporating AI in order to improve existing workflows. For example, Whova’s AI-generated event summary provides a polished post-event recap, highlighting key details to share with your team and stakeholders. We also offer an AI Writing Companion perfect for event descriptions and invitation emails, plus an AI question generator for Trivia Gamification.
We recently held a live panel, where two event experts offered advice for leveraging AI to organize events:
- Dr. Len Tau, Founder of Tau Dental Consulting
- MJ Patent, Chief Marketing Officer of IT company Logically
These experts share what exactly AI can and can’t do for this field. The panel covers common misconceptions, AI dos and don’ts, best practices for due diligence, and more.
Curious about how AI can lighten your workload but want to proceed with caution/thought? Read on to learn how to make it work for you and your event.
1. AI Helps You Cut Down on Repetitive Tasks
You’ve likely heard that AI can save event planners time—but what exactly does it help with?
AI is especially useful when it comes to taking over repetitive, boring, yet critical tasks…the kind that tend to eat up hours of an organizer’s day. Our experts have used it to successfully draft reminders, summarize event details, transcribe sessions or panels, and more.
Beyond planning, AI is also a powerful support tool for streamlining marketing and communication. Use it to draft copy for social media posts, post-event recaps, and follow-up emails—quickly and with far less monotony. It can refine your session descriptions and even generate key takeaways.
Whova’s AI-generated event summary feature is perfect for this: it automatically gives you a structured overview of your event’s successes and key data, so you can easily share that info with stakeholders or members. Use it to recap details about speakers, sessions, exhibitors, sponsors, and more.
“What are those boring tasks? What are those things that you absolutely hate, but it’s part of the job? What can you peel off and assign to AI so more of you can shine, and you can do more of what you love?”
-MJ Patent, Chief Marketing Officer of Logically
“AI turns tasks that normally would take 30 minutes into tasks that take 3 minutes…it takes a huge amount of the administrative load off of my plate, so I can focus on more important things like problem solving and making the attendee experience even better.”
-Dr. Len Tau, Founder of Tau Dental Consulting
2. Creativity Cannot Be Replaced
AI comes up frequently in conversations about displacement in the workforce; as it becomes more capable, concerns naturally arise. But will it negatively impact event planning roles? These experts say no.
AI cannot do what people do. Much of the event organizer business depends on experience-driven insight, adaptability, and nuanced decision-making—skills that can’t be automated. When you leverage AI for the tasks it’s best suited for (repetitive but necessary work) it helps shift your efforts towards higher-impact goals, like driving meaningful ROI for everyone involved in your event.
In other words, AI’s job here is to amplify you, not compete with you. The human role in event management therefore becomes even more important. When you can work faster and smarter, and focus on the big picture, you’re even better equipped to do what really matters: optimize the vendor and attendee experience.
For example, Whova’s AI Writing Companion helps generate invitation emails (when using our registration software) and event descriptions, so you can focus more of your energy on high-level marketing strategy. Simply input general event information and watch as engaging overviews and polished email campaigns come together.
-MJ Patent, Chief Marketing Officer of Logically
“Event planning is a human business. AI can’t walk into a venue and make sure it’s right for their meeting, it can’t talk to a nervous speaker, it can’t negotiate with a vendor, it can’t solve problems on the spot during the event. It can’t replace judgements, hospitality, or creativity.”
-Dr. Len Tau, Founder of Tau Dental Consulting
3. Start with a Solid Foundation, Use AI to Build it Up, Then Add Personal Touches
Since AI is meant to amplify your abilities, the best way to use it is as a partner—it needs your raw material to shine. Try beginning with a draft of your own and using AI to take it to the next level. You or your team should start with some strategizing: what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Once you have something tangible to build on, it’s time to put the details into AI to develop and improve the message.
If you’re not sure how to start your draft and want some inspiration, AI can be helpful with brainstorming too—as long as you give it some key preliminary information. Come up with a general idea of your message, goal, and tone, and go from there.
For example, Whova offers an AI question generator for our Trivia Contest, where organizers input a trivia theme, target audience, and question type—starting with a clear direction. Then, you receive personalized questions to choose from based on those prompts. We also offer AI question generation for Exhibitor Trivia!
Finally, regardless of the tool you’re using, it’s time to make sure your personality shines through. Adjust the tone if needed and add some humorous touches. It’s also important to look for any gaps or information that could have been forgotten—you can even create a separate ‘chat’ and specifically ask your AI to look for anything missing in relation to your goal.
In short, for the best results, there are two key steps: 1) provide detailed guidance at the beginning, and 2) apply critical refinement at the end.
-Dr. Len Tau, Founder of Tau Dental Consulting
4. Effective Prompts = Strong Results
AI is only as good as the prompts it’s fed, so your results depend heavily on the context you provide. Think of it as a professional partnership: the more background you give your collaborator, the better the final product will be.
Whether you’re asking AI to “turn my notes into a polished event announcement” or “write a friendly reminder email for sponsors about upcoming deadlines,” specificity is your greatest asset. For example, if you’re still in the brainstorming phrase, you could even start with the following prompt: “Create three possible event themes, and explain the best decor, food, and activation ideas for each one.”
To get the most out of your tools, follow this prompting method—in this specific order—to ensure high-quality output every time.
- Objective: What do you want delivered? (e.g., an event agenda or a run of show).
- Audience: Who is this for? (e.g., your sales team or VIP attendees).
- Event Details: Define the type, size, date, location, and format.
- Goals: What are you trying to achieve? (e.g., brand awareness or lead generation).
- Constraints: What are the limits? (e.g., budget or resources).
- Reference Materials: Give examples of what “good” looks like to you.
- Output Format: Do you want a Word doc, a table, or a bulleted list?
When you knock out all these categories, you move from guesswork to strategic execution. By providing details like the “why” and the “who,” you ensure the “what” is actually useful.
-Dr. Len Tau, Founder of Tau Dental Consulting
5. Triple Check Everything—Do Your Due Diligence
As you’ve probably gathered by now, AI is not the end-all-be-all. While it can be an incredible assistant when used right, it’s not a substitute for human oversight. AI can and does make mistakes, particularly when it comes to “hallucinating” facts.
Whether you’re putting together exhibitor floor plans or highlighting key statistics and industry-specific trends, the details are your responsibility. AI might be a powerhouse for structuring and brainstorming, but it’s vital to do your own fact-checking.
Anything that requires precise or real-time data, such as venue measurements, needs to be verified personally and/or manually. This is particularly true when it comes to numbers. AI might even make up false sources for the information it generates, so pay close attention to that too!
Copyright considerations are also a growing concern. Your level of risk depends heavily on the level of human intervention involved in your process—generating content from scratch, like a full blog or presentation, poses a much higher risk than using AI to refine content created originally by your team. As a standard safeguard, always run AI-generated drafts through a plagiarism checker.
To put it simply, do your due diligence. AI is a powerful engine, but you need to stay in the driver’s seat.
-MJ Patent, Chief Marketing Officer of Logically
In Conclusion: Make AI Work For You
The takeaway is clear: AI isn’t here to replace the event organizer, but to shift how you spend your time. Using it to tackle monotonous busywork and help overcome “blank page” syndrome can free you up to focus your energy on thoughtful planning and meaningful human connection.
While AI tools can speed up your workflow, refine your messaging, and even suggest new directions for your content, the creativity, accuracy, and integrity of the event remain entirely in your hands.
Be an active participant in bringing AI output to life. Use it bridge the gap between an idea and its execution, but keep your eyes on all the details to ensure that your event’s personality and standards are never compromised.
For more expert advice on how to plan events with proven success, check out other Event Insider topics on our YouTube channel.