Inbound

May 7, 2025

AI & IRL: How Growth Teams Are Rethinking Event ROI in 2025

For growth leaders, events aren’t about filling rooms anymore; they’re about fueling pipeline, deepening relationships, and creating moments that move the needle. But with AI changing how we plan, market, and measure, it’s time to ask a better question:

What does a high-ROI event actually look like now?

At our recent panel featuring Jay Schwedelson (Founder of GURU Media Hub and SubjectLine.com, President and CEO of Outcome Media), Melissa Mahon (Chief Operating Officer at MAS), Dahlia El Gazzar (Tech Evangelist + Idea Igniteur at DAHLIA+Agency), and HubSpot’s own Courtney Dagher (Head of Marketing & Content Programming for Global Events), four industry pros shared how they’re rethinking the event playbook by blending AI and emotional intelligence to drive better outcomes with less waste.

LET AI HANDLE OPS WHILE YOU FOCUS ON RESONANCE

AI is making events faster to plan and easier to scale. It can summarize feedback, generate follow-up content, and automate prep. But when it’s tasked with replacing the creative core? That’s where things can fall flat.

"People are using AI as this crutch for their content for events,” shared Schwedelson. “You can tell they’re using AI to build their decks. It’s the most generic garbage on every slide.”

Rather than relying on AI for content creation, he, Mahon, and El Gazzar use it to synthesize open-ended feedback, understand audience expectations, and prep for sessions with tools like NotebookLM. That way, attendees arrive ready to engage in ways that feel personalized, relevant, and human.

LIVE EXPERIENCES DRIVE REAL CONVERSION

Whether your event is on-site or online, one thing remains clear: live matters. While on-demand content is convenient, it's rarely compelling. Live participation fosters urgency, energy, and real-time interaction with the kind of engagement that actually drives conversions.

"On-demand is the death of everything… it is ruining events in general because there's no energy there. There's no humanity." — Jay Schwedelson

To combat this, Schwedelson's team pioneered an "earned on-demand" model. Attendees have to join a session for at least an hour to receive access to replays. The result? Not just more attendees, but more qualified ones. Attendees who engage live, Schwedelson noted, are 10x more likely to convert to pipeline than passive viewers.

SMART SMALL, DESIGN SMART

You don’t need a massive summit or six-figure stage setup to deliver impact. In fact, trying to scale too fast can lead to burnout, budget waste, and diluted outcomes. The smarter path? Design from the audience backward.

El Gazzar calls it the “accidental planner” trap: marketers handed event responsibility without a roadmap. AI can help by identifying content gaps, top pain points, and interest areas so programming starts from real needs, not assumptions.

"You need to know what you're trying to accomplish. What does success look like?" said Mahon. Her advice? Define a clear objective, and shape everything around that, from session flow to follow-up materials. This audience-first, insight-powered approach makes events more efficient and more effective.

MEASURE MORE THAN ATTENDANCE

It’s no longer enough to report how many people showed up to your event. The real value comes from how attendees feel, interact, and respond—and AI is making that easier to track and act on in real time.

At a recent event, Mahon’s team used Blue Silk GPT to track live attendee sentiment. When negative feedback about chatbot UX spiked mid-event, they rewrote the next day’s keynote to directly address it. That kind of agility builds trust, and shows your audience they’re heard.

Schwedelson also emphasized dwell time as a must-measure metric: "If somebody stays 50% of that webinar, 50% for that virtual session, versus them showing up for the first 10 minutes, they are a much more qualified lead."

And it’s not just about serious stats. Emojis, reaction buttons, and open-text feedback are now gold mines for understanding audience energy and interest and AI is helping make that data digestible. From dwell time and emoji reactions to open-text responses, emotional signals are becoming performance signals; with the right tools, they can inform not just content, but strategy.

DESIGN FOR CONNECTION, NOT JUST CONTENT

The best experiences still do what AI can’t: make people feel something. Whether it's awe, inspiration, or connection, that emotional charge is what creates lasting brand affinity.

Mahon described an AI-powered escape room her team developed to combine product education with team connection. “It informed them about the product. They got hands-on experience, but they were also paired with a bunch of new friends."

El Gazzar, meanwhile, leverages AI to make her talks interactive and personalized in real time using Otter.ai for customized takeaways.

REAL QUESTIONS, REAL STRATEGIES AND TOOLS

Straight from the event Q&A, get real answers from the event pros (and a list of the AI tools they're using).

What AI tools actually enhance engagement?

Schwedelson was candid: he’s found that most AI tools designed to “make events more fun” fall short. His team avoids them. Instead, they go old school with big, unexpected moments, like live-streamed skydivers and DJs. That said, Snapbar stood out as the one AI-powered engagement tool his team actually loves, using it to create viral attendee memes and boost event buzz.

Can AI improve sponsor ROI?

Mahon’s shared how AI supports sponsorship in two key ways:

Visualizing branded activations to help sponsors quickly understand the value proposition.
Real-time audience insight tools like LiveGauge that track booth proximity, sentiment, and conversations, helping sponsors qualify leads more effectively.

What are some AI tools you’re using for events?

The panelists shared a list of the tools their teams are using for events, including:

Snapbar

What it does: AI-enhanced photo booth experience that turns attendee selfies into branded, meme-style content.
Use case: Schwedelson’s team used Snapbar to turn registrants into their “organic marketing engine,” with meme templates that attendees customized and shared, driving millions of impressions.

NotebookLM

What it does: AI research assistant that ingests PDFs, URLs, and video links to generate insights and summaries.
Use case: El Gazzar uses it to prep for 1:1 meetings and sessions by uploading speaker decks or reports, then asking NotebookLM to surface questions and key insights. She also praised its podcast-style audio playback feature for content personalization.

Blue Silk GPT (via Hootsuite)

What it does: Social listening AI that identifies live trends and sentiment from audience conversations.
Use case: Mahon and her team used it to catch a rising conversation mid-event about chatbot frustrations. That insight led to rewriting the next day’s keynote on the fly.

LiveGauge

What it does: AI-powered event analytics tool that tracks booth-level traffic, audio sentiment, and engagement.
Use case: Mahon described using LiveGauge to capture proximity-based interactions at event booths, surfacing real-time insights on how guests were reacting to activations.

voxo.ai

What it does: Session summarization and content generation tool.
Use case: Jay’s team used it to generate post-session recaps, highlight quotes, and create shareable social media clips for attendees. It helped surface value quickly and supported post-event content sharing.

Otter.ai + Gamma

What they do: Otter.ai records and transcribes sessions live; Gamma generates visual presentations.
Use case: El Gazzar uses Otter to capture audience contributions during her talks and then builds post-event decks with Gamma that reflect the real-time dialogue—turning attendees into co-creators of the session.

TL;DR WHAT SMART EVENT STRATEGY LOOKS LIKE IN 2025

If you’re a growth leader looking to create impactful events in the AI era, here’s where to focus next:

Let AI optimize the backend—so you can double down on emotional intelligence, relevance, and resonance.
Design for live energy to drive real-time feedback, stronger engagement, and measurable ROI.
Track emotion as seriously as attendance. Use tools like Blue Silk GPT and LiveGauge to understand what really lands.

Watch the full recap of here. Want more AI insights, tools, and actionable takeaways? Save your spot for INBOUND 2025.