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.
Michael Brown, VP Technology Solutions at SXSW, on how AI is handling content curation at scale, the in-house ML system powering attendee discovery, and why personal AI assistants are the next wave.
The three things Michael says you need to know
Phrasia AI is curating 4,500+ PanelPicker submissions. It identifies recurring themes and cross-track trends that would otherwise be impossible to spot manually, and assigns content tags more cohesively than individual track leads.
SXSW Recommends is an in-house ML recommendation engine. It helps attendees discover sessions, film screenings and music showcases across 6,000+ events on the nine-day SXSW schedule.
Personal AI assistants are the next frontier. Brown expects attendees to input ‘must-see’ sessions, interests and time constraints, and have AI automatically generate tailored agendas, plus real-time session summaries from audio transcripts.
How is SXSW leveraging AI to enhance the attendee experience across its vast audience?
SXSW has partnered with Phrasia to enhance content curation during the PanelPicker stage. With over 4,500 proposals submitted, identifying recurring themes and topics across multiple tracks manually is unworkable. Phrasia’s AI technology has been invaluable in analysing submissions, helping uncover cross-track trends and ensuring comprehensive content coverage.
Phrasia has also streamlined content tagging. Rather than relying on individual track leads to manually assign tags, which often leads to overlap, the AI offers a more efficient and cohesive approach. This has greatly reduced redundancies and improved the clarity of SXSW’s content organisation.
The team also leverages machine learning components in SXSW Recommends, the in-house recommendation engine. With over 6,000 events on the nine-day SXSW schedule, the ML-driven system helps attendees discover sessions, film screenings and music showcases tailored to their interests. By analysing various data points, the engine ensures attendees don’t miss what could be their next favourite event.
What role does AI play in managing logistics and security at a large-scale event like SXSW?
At present, AI does not directly play a role in SXSW’s logistics and security management. The team is always exploring innovative technologies, and as AI evolves, there is potential for it to enhance these areas in the future. For now, logistics and security are managed through well-established processes combining human expertise, proven technologies and close coordination with trusted partners.
How do you foresee AI evolving in the festival and conference space over the next few years?
Brown expects AI to play an increasingly central role in the attendee experience at festivals and conferences. One major shift: real-time, AI-driven solutions that answer general event questions (venue details, session times, speaker information) almost like a personal assistant for each attendee.
Beyond that, AI will help attendees create highly personalised schedules. Rather than manually sifting through hundreds or thousands of events, attendees will input specific parameters (must-see sessions, topics of interest, time constraints) and have AI automatically generate a tailored agenda.
Brown also expects AI-powered tools to evolve into generating real-time session summaries and automatic recaps from audio transcripts. This is starting to appear at events now. It allows attendees to easily catch up on sessions they missed or quickly digest key takeaways, enhancing accessibility for those who cannot attend every event in person.
AI could also help facilitate smarter networking by analysing attendee interests and behaviours to suggest meaningful connections, creating a more dynamic event experience.
“These AI-driven tools have been instrumental in refining both our content review process and the attendee experience, ensuring that we offer a diverse, well-rounded, and accessible range of content.”
— Michael Brown, SXSW
About Michael Brown
Michael Brown is VP of Technology Solutions at SXSW, the annual conference and festival programme based in Austin, Texas that spans film, interactive and music. He leads the technology strategy behind one of the largest and most complex content programmes in the world.
This interview is part of AI in Events 2025: Adoption, Barriers and Forecast. Download the full PDF report. Browse all Event Tech Live research.
