Blog article • 6 min read
Adoption, Data, Action: The AI Playbook for Events from GBTA 2025
Adoption, Data, Action: The AI Playbook for Events from GBTA 2025
From the floor at GBTA, the same concern keeps coming up: for meetings and events both small and large, spend is still slipping through the cracks.
But this year, there was a clear front-runner in the conversation. You guessed it, AI.
To make it work, though, it starts with one key thing.
Adoption.
Because without users, there’s no structured data. And only with this data can you apply AI in a way that’s tailored to your program, and not just get generic outputs.
Across panels, booths, and off-site coffee chats, three truths emerged:
Automation means nothing without adoption
The use of AI is only as good as your data
And ultimately: the cost of flying blind is only getting higher
From adoption to AI strategy, this recap covers how companies are using data and automation to reduce risk, increase compliance, and optimize their meetings and event programs.
Small meetings, big time sink
In a panel aptly named Small Meetings, Big Decisions, Dan Humby drew attention to an overlooked category that's becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
Nearly 40% of organizations expect small meetings to be their fastest-growing meeting type, and for three-quarters of planners, they already make up half the workload.
If small meetings are consuming that much time for your planning community, then they deserve a strategic focus and really not just an afterthought.
Left unmanaged, they represent one of the biggest gaps in event oversight today, both in terms of cost and time lost.
So how do we fix it?
It starts with structure. Define what “small meetings” means for your organization—whether by budget, attendee count, room nights, or another threshold tied to risk. At Shell, Jennifer Pape (Global Meeting & Events Manager) uses a budget cutoff, since cost tends to correlate with complexity and financial risk.
Then comes the harder part: identifying who’s actually booking. It’s especially tricky in the small meetings category, where planning is often decentralized and informal.
Some tips shared from the panelists:
Running internal surveys to find hidden planners
Analyzing expense data for meeting-related spend
Using more specific GL codes to isolate spend
“It’s a dark art,” Pape said—but a necessary one.
And finally: make the experience better. Adoption only happens when the solution is one people want to use.
Small or large, the risk is real
Even well-meaning planners can overspend drastically. In Balancing Agility and Control in Your Meeting & Event Program, Jennifer Steinke, Director of Travel, Meetings, and Fleet at Moderna, shared a cautionary tale:
A corporate social planner signed multiple hotel contracts, inadvertently committing the company to $20 million in spend—for an event with a budget of $2 million.
Without established hotel relationships or negotiated cancellation terms, the company ultimately lost about half a million dollars, Steinke said.
The reality is that occasional planners may not be aware of preferred supplier agreements, or how quickly costs can spiral upwards.
And then it’s procurement leaders and travel managers who are left to clean up the mess.
“It was painful, I’m not going to lie. I mean 300 meetings in one year for two people is nuts.” – Jennifer Steinke
That experience underscored a deeper challenge: without visibility, there’s no way to manage risk at scale.
Steinke shared a moment that drew laughter across the room:
The CPO said to me, ‘Can you tell me how much rogue spend we have?’
An impossible task, because without the right systems, that kind of data simply doesn’t exist. For Steinke’s team, the turning point was using payments as a control lever.
“The catalyst is the payment piece of it. That’s where it’s been really successful, because it forces everyone to do the other thing.”
For Sean Parham, Senior Manager of Travel & Meetings Services at Discord, the solution started with infrastructure. He focused on selecting a technology partner that wouldn’t introduce more silos, but instead connect tools like registration and booking into a single, integrated workflow—so teams weren’t chasing down event details across spreadsheets or fragmented systems.
With tighter controls on payments and a more unified booking experience, something else becomes possible: structured data ready to drive real strategy.
Data is the new differentiator
AI is only as smart as the data it’s built on, and that data has to come from your own program.
It’s one thing to use generative AI for simple inputs and outputs.
It’s another to use your program data to design systems that work automatically—enforcing compliance, improving negotiations, and increasing the value of your program at scale.
As Toby Frowen, Meetings & Events Consultant of Festive Road, shared, 76% of clients say that using data to demonstrate value significantly improves their program, leading to stronger executive support, smarter decisions, and more sustainable impact.
But that value goes far beyond dashboards.
When you structure and centralize your data, you’re creating a foundation for AI that’s actually useful.
It’s how traveler personas get created. AI can analyze booking behavior, preferences, and engagement trends to build dynamic profiles that evolve over time—helping you source smarter, personalize experiences, and improve compliance.
It’s how the best-fit supplier gets chosen. Agentic AI weighs tradeoffs like cost vs. flexibility, so you get smarter suggestions than a basic filtered list.
It’s how expert negotiation gets scaled. Agents suggest proven tactics based on past wins, and your organization's leverage—so even non-experts can negotiate like pros.
Without data, AI is just automation.
With data, it becomes insight, strategy and impact.
No one asked: But AI read the travel policy.
In a no frills panel on a perfect AI application, Steven Glenn (Chairman and Chief Visionary Officer of Executive Travel) addressed the issue of no one ever reading the travel policy.
Until, of course, AI gives them instant answers to questions like:
“Can I book business class for this trip?”
“Does this vendor’s offering comply with our policies?”
Jennifer Belt shared that Executive Travel now triggers approvals based on live spend thresholds.
Tony Arnold of Brown Bacon AI added natural language search to make policies easier to follow.
So instead of reading policy docs, employees can just ask, “What’s the hotel cap in New York?” — and get an instant answer.
Tony summed it up perfectly:
If you have to explain the policy every time, your system’s broken.
AI and HI (Human intelligence)
The question is no longer, are you using AI, but rather, how are you using AI? Where do you draw the line?
AI saves time. But when it comes to big decisions like executive travel, people still trust humans more.
During the session on “Travel Agents vs. AI”, Ron Glickman from Acai Travel asked: “Would you let AI book travel for your employees?” About a third said yes.
Then he asked a follow-up question:
Would you let AI book travel for your C-Suite?
Not a single hand went up.
The message was clear: AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not replacing travel managers or planners. It’s there to speed up admin work and free up time for more important tasks.
Another key point was transparency. Attendees agreed that users must always know when they’re dealing with AI. If people feel tricked, they lose trust. AI should be clearly labeled, with an option to talk to a person.
The biggest takeaway from GBTA: AI is only as good as the data behind it—and that starts with adoption. Without capturing data on meetings and events of all sizes, companies miss out on the knowledge needed to reduce risk, drive compliance, and personalize AI.
The smartest programs are deciding what to automate, what stays human, and how to embed policy directly into the tools people already use.
And as the data from meetings and travel converges, the path forward is clear: faster planning, fewer fire drills, and one place for everything.
In a world where in-person matters more than ever, optimization isn’t optional, it’s the only way through.
Psst…
Something new is coming to Planned to help teams drive adoption. Let’s talk. →
