Part of the AI in Events 2025 research from Event Tech Live. Interview by Adam Parry, founder, Event Tech Live. Published 14 February 2025. Last updated 18 April 2026.
Matt Parlier, Director of Event Initiatives and Strategic Partnerships at American City Business Journals, on how generative AI is letting business-journal event teams replicate programmes across multiple cities, the sponsorship signals it unlocks from attendee data, and the content problem attendees can spot a mile off.
The three things Matt says you need to know
AI is making multi-city event replication scalable. Script templates for panel discussions, brand-voice-trained marketing blueprints, and localised content generation let event managers focus on local detail instead of rewriting each deployment from scratch.
AI-driven attendee analysis unlocks sponsorship intelligence. Uploading attendee lists into generative AI surfaces the most common titles, companies and industries in minutes rather than days, opening conversations with sponsors who want access to those audiences.
Watch out for the 1 and 3 problem. AI-generated content that leads with one attention-grabbing headline followed by three generic bullets. Attendees can detect it, and it erodes the emotional connection events need.
How is AI helping you scale event management across multiple regions and formats?
Generative AI has significantly enhanced ACBJ’s ability to scale event management across different regions and formats. The biggest efficiency gain has been in content creation, particularly for events replicated across multiple cities. Using AI to generate script templates for panel discussions, and to create a foundation the team can curate and revise, streamlines the entire content process. Event managers only need to update key details like speaker information and localised content, cutting out most of the manual personalisation work.
On marketing, AI optimises campaign planning. By training AI models on the brand’s unique voice, the team can create comprehensive blueprints for email and social media marketing that need less manual editing. This speeds up production while keeping messaging consistent, targeted and engaging across formats.
How can AI-driven analytics identify strategic partnerships that benefit business events?
AI-driven analytics surface insights into event attendees and their professional profiles, enabling the team to identify and prioritise sponsorship prospects. Historically, gathering and analysing attendee data was time-consuming and manual. By uploading attendee lists into generative AI platforms, ACBJ can quickly generate insights on the most common titles, companies and industries represented at events. This identifies key industries in the audience, which opens conversations with sponsors wanting to reach those industries.
What are the primary barriers to AI adoption at regional or industry-specific business events?
Parlier points to the persistent issue of ‘AI speak’ in marketing and event content. While AI can assist in content generation, there is still a noticeable difference between human and AI copy, especially when the AI version lacks refinement. AI-generated content can feel mechanical or impersonal, hurting the emotional connection event organisers need to build with their audience.
The mitigation is for event professionals to keep honing their own copywriting skills, so AI enhances rather than replaces creative work. AI can be a powerful efficiency tool, but it needs to be treated as a foundation, not a substitute for authentic, human-centred content.
Parlier is especially concerned about what he calls the ‘1 and 3’ problem, where AI-generated insights offer one attention-grabbing headline followed by three generic bullet points. Attendees detect it. Event professionals need to make sure AI is assisting in creating high-quality content that resonates, not defaulting to simplistic output. That means adding another layer to the vetting process for talent and thought leadership.
“Generative AI has significantly enhanced our ability to scale event management across various regions and formats.”
— Matt Parlier, American City Business Journals
About Matt Parlier
Matt Parlier is Director of Event Initiatives and Strategic Partnerships at American City Business Journals (ACBJ), the largest publisher of metropolitan business newsweeklies in the United States. He leads strategy for how ACBJ’s 44 markets run their events programmes and the sponsorship models that sit behind them.
This interview is part of AI in Events 2025: Adoption, Barriers and Forecast. Download the full PDF report. Browse all Event Tech Live research.
