Chat GPT-5 is here and it’s dramatically changing how events are designed, delivered, and experienced. It’s time to get on board.

Earlier this month Open AI released Chat GPT-5. It’s a massive leap ahead from GPT-4 and illustrates how fast this tech revolution is occurring. Its uses include personalising content, automating logistics, improving accessibility, and generate deeper insights.

Rather than seeing AI just as a replacement for human expertise, expect it to reshape the industry's priorities. That’ll require new skills, rethinking value, and adding to the vital human dimension.

As Open AI chief executive Sam Altman says, “you need to be on the front end of adoption”.

At the same time, using AI’s powers raises concerns around data privacy, the impact on jobs, and potentially losing creative uniqueness (that can be a big one, as we’re already learning. It’ll always be important to stand out from the crowd, but AI can quickly blur “uniqueness”).

AI is already influencing the way events are created and experienced. Event managers have already been adopting AI tools to improve efficiency and reach wider audiences. Increasingly sophisticated participants are looking for more than the same old dross (and let’s face it, some events can be pretty dull.) So AI’s role in the industry isn’t just some new technical toy; it’s cultural, creative, and strategic. AI has altered the mechanics of events and is raising important questions about the experience.

Automation is cutting down planning cycles. Use it to match things like venues to budgets, schedule speakers, coordinate dietary requirements. Jobs that once needed a small team can now handled by algorithms. AI can design layouts for stands, generate promotional content, and manage logistics. For smaller teams or tighter budgets, this is a gift.

AI makes for greater personalisation on a large scale. Beware it doesn’t de-personalise the experiences. Using new tech in pursuit of personalisation is hardly news for many of us, but it’s the intensity - and the opportunities - that have been transformed. The most immediate and visible effects of AI in events are the shift toward individualised content. Organisers can now draw from large pools of attendee data to shape unique event journeys. In practice, what does this mean?- more personalised agendas, - targeted networking recommendations, - intelligent session suggestions that make large events feel more intimate, and- no more same-old-same-old!

Enhanced access and translation makes for inclusivity. At ICC Sydney (where we’re holding our FACTS event in November), AI-powered captioning and translation tools have been trialled in conference settings. These tools open events up to people who are hearing-impaired or non-native speakers; they can expand reach and make inclusion a core design principle.

One transformative feature of AI in events is the ability to monitor and adapt in real time. Systems can analyse audience engagement - using facial expression, dwell time, or click paths - to help organisers understand not just what people attended, but how they felt. These insights are great for post-event debriefs; but they can also be used during events to tweak timing, shift lighting, or even redirect content delivery in real time.

So, all that’s on the positive side of the ledger. What about job security and competitive challenges?

AI-driven systems will reduce the demand for manual and entry-level event roles. Automated check-in systems, chatbot support desks, and AI-generated copy are rapidly replacing tasks once performed by junior staff. So this is likely to change how people enter the industry and challenges established career ladders. It’s not just an issue in this industry, but everywhere, from lawyers to accountants, you name it.

Disrupt yourself before someone else does it for you! AI can save costs, at the same time improving the product. 

This upside can be the other, more positive, side of the coin from job insecurity – but it does change things. For example, it can allow smart new tech-savvy competition to short-cut the business of event management and delivery.

Sam Altman argues, for entrepreneurs, Chat GPT-5 is a new “super power…Businesses that are adopting these powers are seeing huge efficiency gains”.

That makes it essential for traditional business to be ready to disrupt themselves, to compete with the newcomers.

(There’s a plaque on the wall of Sydney’s Central Station dedicated to the “father of rail” in NSW, a Mr John Whitton. He was appointed in 1867 to establish that state’s rail system. His initial fierce battle was to overcome the lobby that wanted to create horse-drawn lines with wooden rails. Whitton saw the future and insisted on steel rails and steam trains. That’s the direction of change that AI will deliver.)

Avoid looking the same as your competition. Creativity still reigns. As more events use similar AI tools and templates, differentiation becomes even more important. Templated content, automated flows, and machine-generated session formats can make events feel predictable, even if they’re technically well-executed. The creative value of an event gets harder and harder to sustain if you try to use automation alone. Keeping human innovation as part of the process is the way to go. Combining AI tools makes for something special.

Over-automation can strain the human connection. Despite the opportunities, it’s important not to let the AI geeks rule! AI systems can provide information and match people efficiently, but they can’t replicate the feel of a room or the subtle cues that make human interaction meaningful.

Those moments of serendipity are often the most valued part of an event – and they often occur in the more informal moments, over a coffee or a glass of wine. Using AI tools now makes it even more important (and easier) to wrap good social interaction around your formal event.

Navigating the shift: deliver meaning, not just content. Successful events management depends not just on adopting AI but on adapting to what AI offers for audience expectations and operational possibilities. It heightens the pressure to rethink how events deliver meaning - not just content. This requires professionals who are both tech-savvy and skilled across interpretation, narrative construction, and emotional design. That can mean changing the shape of your team. While the tools might change, the challenge remains: creating events that connect.

Treat AI as a provocation. It’s not (yet) a replacement for the human imagination. AI changes what’s easy and what is hard. It will remove the need for some jobs and it will change others. It can remove friction but will also flatten interesting complexity unless handled carefully.

The task is therefore to automate the experience as far as possible, but then to use that automation to produce something more compelling: events that are more inclusive, more dynamic, and ultimately more human.

And beware the risks. Using AI can create difficult-to-navigate ethics and transparency issues. Personalisation relies on building detailed user data, but this brings with it real ethical weight. In Australia, changing privacy laws require clear consent and responsible storage. Your actions must be transparent to attendees, for example if and how their facial data or emotional responses are being recorded and analysed. Trust is essential for any sound relationship, so being upfront about all potentially sensitive areas is a must.

This is a tsunami, not a ripple. It’s important also to recognise that the rapid advances in AI mean constant vigilance is needed. The rapid “step-change” leap from Chat GPT-4 to -5 is a case in point. So, imagining you can call in a tech consultant to reshape your business, then sit back to enjoy the future isn’t an option. We’re on the crest of a tech revolution that will have deep and continuing social and economic consequences. It’s a tsunami, not a few ripples. That implies constant awareness and adaptation on a scale we’ve never experienced.

FACTS 2025 will be held at Sydney’s ICC on 25-26 November

FACTS 2025 uniquely brings together under one roof four Summits: Corporate Travel, Business Events, Travel Tech, and Aviation. In each of those areas, AI will inescapably be a guest at the forefront of every discussion. By the time FACTS comes around in November, AI will have opened up even newer frontiers – and raised even more questions.