The future of events doesn’t care how we’ve always done things

I've seen fax machines disappear, I've watched email transform communication, I've witnessed the rise of social media, virtual events, hybrid events and an endless stream of technologies that were supposedly going to "change everything". 

Most of them didn't. 

Sometimes they have made things a little faster, better, or more efficient, but the fundamentals remained largely the same. People meeting people, ideas being shared, relationships being built, experiences creating memories. 

Yet today, for the first time in my career, I genuinely believe we are standing at the beginning of something different. Something bigger. 

This isn't evolution. It's revolution. 

And many in our industry haven't quite realised it yet. 

The events industry has historically been brilliant at adapting to external challenges. We survived economic crises, terrorist threats, a global pandemic that effectively shut our entire sector down overnight. But our biggest challenge over the next decade won't be surviving more disruption. It will be embracing it. 

Artificial intelligence is not simply another technology platform or productivity tool. AI will fundamentally alter how events are designed, marketed, sold, produced, experienced and measured. Tasks that currently take days will take minutes, insights that once required large teams will become instantly available, attendee journeys will become personalised in ways we've barely imagined. Entire job roles will evolve, new ones will emerge, others will disappear, and that's uncomfortable to say, but leadership is about confronting reality, not avoiding it. 

The next generation won't ask for permission

One of the biggest lessons I've learned over three decades is that every generation enters the workplace with fresh thinking. Sometimes we listen, often we don't. 

The next generation entering our industry today has grown up in a completely different world from many of us who built our careers in it. They don't see technology as an enhancement, they see it as a starting point, they don't separate digital and physical experiences. To them, it's all just experience. 

They aren't asking how AI can support their job, they're asking why certain parts of the job still exist at all. And honestly? They have a point. 

The mistake experienced leaders can make is assuming that experience alone gives us the answers. Experience gives us perspective; it doesn't give us ownership of the future. 

The people entering our businesses now will create event formats, engagement models and business models that many of us simply haven't thought of yet. Our job isn't to resist that, our job is to create the environment where it can happen.

More curiosity, less comfort

One of my frustrations with our industry is that we often celebrate innovation while quietly protecting the status quo. We attend conferences about transformation and then return to businesses running exactly as they did before. 

We talk about disruption but reward conformity. We say we want fresh thinking and then wonder why younger colleagues don't feel empowered to contribute. 

The next decade will belong to curious organisations, not necessarily the biggest, the wealthiest, or those with the longest heritage. The winners will be those willing to challenge their own assumptions, the companies prepared to ask difficult questions, the leaders brave enough to admit they don't have all the answers. 

In an AI-powered world, curiosity may become the most valuable leadership skill of all.