ORIGINAL research
Event Performance Landscape in the Age of AI
Events matter more as AI floods every other channel. Most event teams now use AI to create content; only 26% say it has delivered a significant improvement. Forrester surveyed 459 senior leaders on why, and on what the teams seeing results do differently.
Mike Fletcher, with Anita Howard
January 2026 · 7 min read
A study commissioned by the Cvent Center for Event Insights and conducted by Forrester Consulting, September 2026. 459 director-level and above marketing and event leaders; 75% North America, 15% EMEA, 10% APAC.
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Best practice
Prove ROI before the event
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CONVENINGS AND CONVERSATIONS
Say events matter more,
not less, as AI floods
channels with synthetic content
70%
Say audience expectations keep rising
77%
Already use AI to create event content
59%
Say it has delivered a significant improvement
26%
Source: Event Performance Landscape in the Age of AI, Forrester Consulting, September 2026. Base: 459 senior event and marketing leaders.
AI: the gap between adoption and payoff
Fifty-nine percent of the leaders surveyed already use AI in event content. Twenty-six percent say it has made a significant difference. That 33-point gap is where we'd start, and much of the rest of the study reads as an explanation of it.
USE AI TO GENERATE EVENT CONTENT
59%
Use AI in event content
SEE A SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT
26%
Use AI in event content
33 points
26%
The payoff gap
Adoption vs. measured payoff
Two of those explanations are about data. Two-thirds say their event data is too unstructured for AI to use well. Seventy-one percent say it is fragmented across tools. Only 36% consistently capture and integrate data across all their events.
What has not changed
Seventy percent say events matter more as AI floods every other channel with synthetic content. Seventy-seven percent say audience expectations are still rising. The demand side of the event is holding; the pressure is on the production side.
"If you can't say what a successful event would have changed, you're not measuring ROI. You're measuring attendance with extra steps."
Where AI does pay off
Forrester found AI creates the greatest value in data-dependent uses: pre-event marketing strategy (46%), data analysis (44%) and personalized recommendations (41%), compared with 26% for content creation.
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Event Performance Landscape in the Age of AI, a study commissioned by the Cvent Center for Event Insights and conducted by Forrester Consulting, September 2026.