AI is Changing EVERYTHING in Event Sourcing! Are You Ready?

filled with uncertainty. One thing that is certain, cliché I know, it's change. Now, the whole story and the impact of AI, that story is still being written starting now. And the choices and decisions that we all make are going to create the foundation for the success of ourselves and our teams and our industry in the future. And our industry's landscape is changing fast. And of course with these innovations and the constant change that AI is bringing bringing, this is a new game where the successes that we've had in the past and what we've done then are not what is going to make us successful in the future. AI is clearly that disruptor. But yes, it is also bringing all of us here opportunity. Opportunity for us to go take. So, the winners are going to lean into the change, be curious, experiment, try out new things. And of course, we're seeing event planners changing the way that they search, changing the way that they make decisions. And hospitality professionals are rethinking the ways, the best ways for them to connect and collaborate with event planners. Now, some of you might be those early adopters. And we want to work together with you to lean in and pioneer this change in this new chapter. Others, you might want to move a little more slowly, a little bit more deliberately, cautiously optimistic. Either way, we want to help you manage this change together with you for what works best for you and your organization. Now, Now, wanted to share this. When teams are working through change, your effectiveness and impor- uh performance, those two things improve over time. Now, of course, we all know at this point AI is here to stay, so we've passed what's called the forming stage. What we're in now, and it probably feels like this little chaotic, we're in the storming phase. Storming, we're experimenting, testing, trying out new things, learning. Some are working, some are not working. But in the not too distant future, we're going to be doing what's called norming. This new normal, this new way of working is going to help us work better, make better decisions, work smarter. And ultimately we'll be that, yes, high-performing team, reaping all the benefits and the rewards of the power that AI will bring us. Now, our product vision at Cvent, it's

simple. It's powered by AI and it's helping our customers be more productive and helping them grow and manage their business. And our AI strategy is going to give you and event planners and hospitality professionals the choice for how you want to engage with Cvent and our platform. So first, we're going to be investing in our core products that customers are already using today, making them even better by bringing AI directly into those workflows. Second, we're building brand new from the ground up a native AI experiences, those AI chat conversational capabilities and experiences that on Cvent are going to make it simpler and smarter. And third, we're doing what we call bringing our delegated workflows to your applications, leveraging MCP servers and APIs to connect directly into your applications and interfaces that you that you use. MCP, if you haven't heard MCP model context protocol, it's an open standard software that really brings together and connects the AI models with external tools and applications. And of course, to make this all possible, you've seen and heard Cvent IQ. It's the AI that powers our platforms. And there are three unique assets that we have that are being built upon for all of our events and hospitality industry leveraging Cvent IQ to make our experiences simple, powerful, and personalized for you. So, first, it's having a trusted, highly

scaled marketplace. And we've been building this out over time, as you know, creating deep relationships, connecting event planners and hospitality professionals. Second is data and content. And we have decades of RFP history, event dates, rates, rich content that buyers and suppliers rely on every single day. And third are those workflows, where we're embedded with our customers across things like sourcing, diagramming, managing room blocks, and Cvent is the system of record for those of you using that for those parts of your group business. And all of these assets are critical working together because AI, it's only as valuable as the data that you have behind it, the workflows it powers, and of course, the trust and accuracy that surrounds it. Now, as you all know, big change is

happening, especially with sourcing. Planners are expecting a lot more than just that sort of traditional long page of results. They're looking for recommendations, for answers, for curated, personalized experiences for you. And for the suppliers, the winners are going to be the ones that are the easiest to connect and collaborate with, and of course, the most trusted. And today, we're excited to have a team of our experts here to show you all the investments that we're making to reimagine the sourcing process. So, what you're going to hear today, we're going to share the insights on the changing planner behaviors and the state of our market. Second, we're going to show you AI's impact on search and the shift from SEO to GEO, generative engine optimization. And third, we're going to show you brand new AI-powered product experiences for planners, as well as hospitality professionals. So, we're excited to share all three of these with you starting right now. So, please welcome Jess to the stage to get us kicked off. >> Hi, everybody. So, before we dive in today, I would really like to hear from all of you. So, if you haven't already opened up your phones to the session, we're going to do a quick live poll. So, what we really want to know is where is AI having the biggest impact on sourcing today for you all? Venue discovery, RFP creation, proposal comparison, or venue responses and content. Answers are already coming in. I'll give you a couple seconds though. Already a lot in venue discovery. I'm sure Brian is going to be excited about that. He's working on our AI or AI sourcing tool. tool. All right. Well, honestly, I I don't think there is a wrong answer here because ultimately AI is touching all of these. But, what I think is revealing is where you're all feeling it. So, keep this in mind as we go through our session today. Now, I want to set the scene for a moment because I think it's important that we're grounded in where we are before we start digging into the data

points. Venue sourcing or the process of finding the right space, sending an RFP, comparing bids, and making a decision has fundamentally changed. Not just incrementally, structurally. The tools planners use, the speed at which they shortlist, the way they evaluate fit, it's all different now and AI is right at the center of that shift. And we're going to talk through what that means for all of you guys, whether you're the one sending the RFP or you're the one receiving it. It's important to note, this is not a future state conversation. AI is already a part of how sourcing happens right now in every daily workflow. Three quarters of planners are saying that they use AI in sourcing. 75% that's a lot. And when you look at where they're using it, it maps almost exactly to that poll that we started with. Venue search and selection tops the list at 43%. I'll be the next slide. Attendee data and analysis for better venue fit comes in at 41% and bid comparison is right behind at 40%. These aren't fringe use cases. These are core sourcing activities. This is the work planners spend most of their time on and AI is right in the center of it. Now here's where it gets a little even more significant. 60% of planners are actively planning to increase their AI use for sourcing. Many moving from occasional use to a meaningful part of their process. 47% say they already use technology and it's reducing their sourcing time. So, the question for everyone in this room isn't if AI is reshaping sourcing, it's whether your workflows and your content is ready for it. What AI is doing is compressing what used to be a multi-stop labor-intensive process into something much more connected and much more efficient. Planners use AI to create RFPs, compare bids, and analyze attendee data. It's influencing multiple touch points, not just discovery. And that changes the shape of the entire sourcing journey. What used to be a series of manual steps is now becoming one connected decision flow. That's great for planners. They're getting speed, they're getting sharper insights, and it's happening earlier in the process. In fact, 42% of planners say technology gives them better data and analytics for their sourcing decisions. And 34% of planners say it has streamlined their RFP process. Now, there's an implication that matters here for suppliers, too. Planner speed means that your response time and your content quality are under a whole different pressure than they used to be. But, before we jump into those implications, let's talk about who those planners are because the sourcing challenge isn't one-size-fits-all.

Corporate planners run complex, high-volume programs. They need more automation, consistency, and speed across their teams. For these folks, AI brings structure to planning processes, and it reduces the manual workflow that slows down execution. Third-party agencies support a wide range of clients and event types, but they often focus where the volume is highest. AI helps them work more efficiently. They can expand their book of business, take on events, and grow into categories they previously couldn't support at scale. And occasional planners are juggling multiple responsibilities, and they may not always know where to start. AI helps them move faster with intuitive tools, clearer guidance, and more confidence. And here's something equally important. When we talk about sourcing, we can't only mean large conferences at big-name hotels. The opportunity is a lot bigger than that. It's small meetings, unique retreats, intimate dinners. And the suppliers aren't just hotels. They're restaurants, galleries, They're restaurants, galleries, experiential venues, rooftops, stadiums. I mean, the list goes on. Cvent's vision is sourcing that works for all of this, not just the large events, and not just the traditional suppliers. Every planner, every event, every supplier. Now, before I share the next data point, I want to hear specifically from the planners in the room. So, next poll we're going to pull out for you guys. When you guys are sourcing a venue today, what is your number one priority? Do you care most about budget and cost control, attendee experience, speed and availability, or unique or non-traditional venues and experiences? All right, a lot of budget and cost control. I mean, it makes sense. We all have a bottom line, right? But again, keep this in mind because the data we are seeing globally it tells a very clear story about where priorities are actually shifting. And this is also changing how sourcing works. One of these changes is how planners define success.

define success. For years, budget was the number one KPI. And obviously, that's still true. But from what we've seen, that is also changing. Today, 63% of planners site attendee engagement as a primary success metric. They're not starting by asking first, "How do we save money?" They're asking, "How do we make this memorable?" That is reflected in where they're sourcing. 48% of planners are now sourcing special event venues. Places like those restaurants, art galleries, rooftops, and cultural spaces. And that's up more than 30% in the last 3 years. Planners want spaces that deliver an experience, not just a capacity. This changes the sourcing dynamic entirely. It's no longer just, "Find me a hotel with meeting rooms." Now, it's "Find me the venue that will make this event unforgettable." And that is where AI becomes the true matchmaker. Surfacing the right venue for the right planner, based not just on what they're fitting a filter, but for what on what they're looking for. The goal here is to match what a planner is looking for for exactly with exactly what a supplier can bring to the table. Now, I want to be clear about something

because I think the narrative around AI can get a little distorted. We shouldn't frame this as AI versus planners or AI versus suppliers. It's not going to give us a long-term benefit. AI is here and it's the wrong mindset. AI is taking more of that heavy lifting, so planners and suppliers alike can focus on the higher value parts of the work. Planners still bring judgment and discernment. AI can't replace the insight that comes from walking a venue, understanding a client's culture, and navigating a tricky negotiation. And suppliers still bring hospitality, nuance, and the human experience of being on property physically. What AI does is help both sides get to the right match faster. It can speed up the process, but human expertise is still what turns a good option into the right fit. For suppliers, AI can improve speed, it can strengthen content, but your insight is what makes a proposal feel credible and trustworthy. The real opportunity isn't just adopting AI, it's designing sourcing experiences that combine intelligence with trust, and that's where the biggest wins are. I've talked a lot about industry trends and data we've seen, but to close, I want to focus on what AI-driven sourcing means for content. In a keyword search world, being listed was enough. If the filters matched, you showed up. In an AI-driven sourcing experience, visibility depends more on the content richness and content relevance. AI is surfacing and recommending venues based on how well your profile can be understood, not just whether you appear. Venues that have rich, accurate, detailed profiles are more likely to be surfaced and recommended. Thin profiles lose out, not just because of a human judgment call, but because AI simply doesn't have enough signal to make a confident match. For suppliers, the bar's moved from being listed to being understandable. And this is great for everyone. Better sourced data means better fit recommendations, fewer rounds of back and forth, and more qualified leads reaching suppliers. When the content is right, everyone wins. The right planner finds the right venue, the right supplier wins the right business. That match between what a planner is looking for and what a supplier can bring to the table is exactly what AI-powered sourcing is designed to make happen. And the foundation that makes all of that possible is content. And that is where Sam is going to take us next. Thank you.

>> Thank you, Jess. Like Jess mentioned, AI is here to handle more of the heavy lifting so that planners and suppliers can focus on the higher value work. And I want to pick that thread back up because there's a layer underneath that shift that's easy to miss. The way buyers find you is changing, and it's changing fast. And if your team isn't optimizing for how discovery works in 2026, you're falling behind. So, for the next 10 minutes, I'm going to take you in my world. I work in search engine optimization, or SEO. This means my job, historically, has been focused on driving traffic to websites from Google. However, over the last 2 years, my field has seen a seismic shift. So, today I'm going to talk to you about what that shift is and why you need to be paying attention. First, let me take you through a quick timeline because context matters here. In 2022, ChatGPT launched. At the time, most of us treated it like a curiosity, a tool for writing emails or brainstorming ideas. What it actually did was introduce a new behavior. People started asking questions and getting direct answers without surfing the web. In 2024, In 2024, Google responded. They launched AI Overviews. You've all seen them. These are the AI-generated summaries that now sit at the very top of the search results page. Suddenly, the answer is in the search results. Google is no longer just pointing you to a destination. It's becoming the destination. And now, in 2026, Google has announced that its intelligent, AI-powered search bar is coming, a conversational, agentic search experience. You don't type keywords anymore. You have a conversation. You get a recommendation. You make a decision. And often times, you make that decision without ever visiting a single website. In the world of SEO, we refer to this shift as zero-click search. search. The search happens, the discovery

happens, but the click, the traffic, the visit to your website, often doesn't. The numbers are telling here. 68% of all Google searches now end without a click. Let that sink in for a second. More than two-thirds of the people searching for something on Google today never leave that search result page to go to a website. They get an AI-generated answer right there and move on. and move on. And on ChatGPT And on ChatGPT less than 1% of users are clicking a link from the tool's output. So, if you've been measuring your success by traffic and clicks like we have in SEO for years you're now looking at a metric that's losing its meaning. That's just the way the search landscape is shifting. Now, before you spiral this is a not a search is dead conversation. The exact opposite, actually. Discovery through organic search isn't going anywhere. But, the way we engage with search engines is fundamentally different in 2026 than it was just 3 years ago. So, let's break it down. Google still processes 14 billion searches every single day. Layer on top of that, 2.5 billion ChatGPT prompts run daily. ChatGPT has become a search engine in its own right. So, it's Gemini, Perplexity, Claude. The places where buyers go to ask questions and get recommendations have multiplied. And they're all AI-powered. With search still happening at this scale, it is critical to understand how to win in these emerging search engines. But, to optimize for these channels is not to optimize for clicks. We are no longer competing for clicks. We're competing for mentions. for mentions. And that's the pivot. The game hasn't ended. It's just changed, and we have a new name for it. Generative engine optimization or GEO. So, let's put it side by side. SEO, search engine optimization, is what I've been doing for years, what most of you are probably familiar with. You optimize web pages to rank in Google. You target keywords. You track your position on the blue link search results page. You measure clicks and impressions. GEO, generative engine optimization, is about optimizing to appear accurately, favorably, and often in AI-generated answers. The platform isn't a search results page. It's inside an AI response, a ChatGPT, an AI, Perplexity, or Google's own AI properties. And the input isn't a short keyword. It's a full conversational question. And the success metric is no longer a click. It's whether your brand is visible in these answers, and your content is cited to inform these answers. Now, this is not SEO 2.0, nor is it Google versus ChatGPT. This is a structural shift in how search and discovery works. And it's critical to adjust your strategy for this new search landscape. So, let's zoom in. Like I said, the days of vying for clicks and impressions are over. There are two new currencies you need to care about. The first is visibility. Are you being mentioned when someone asks an AI tool to recommend solutions for their problem? If AI is generating a short list, and you're not on it, you don't exist in that moment. The second, citations. citations. Is AI pulling from your content to build its answer? Are you controlling what AI says about you? Are you letting someone else do it? Citations drive the narrative. They help you gain visibility. If your content is cited frequently, you take a larger share of the conversation, and you grab more control. So, let's look at an example. We have a prompt. Convention Center, 70-plus meeting rooms, Nashville. Music City Center is listed in the output for this prompt. That's visibility. That's a mention. But it's being mentioned because its CSN profile is being cited. That's a citation. And you need to focus on both in order to win in this space. But what do you actually do to gain visibility and to generate citations? I want to leave you with three pillars to take back to your team. The first is content. You heard about it already. Does your content account for every qualifier that user is specifying? The user asking a 25-word prompt gets 25 words worth of content from your answers. That means detailed information on the things that set you apart. If your content is thin, AI doesn't have enough signal to confidently recommend you. And the second And the second is readability. is readability. Can AI crawlers actually read your website? This is more technical, but it matters. If your site is built in a way that blocks AI bots, or if your content is buried in PDFs, behind login walls, or in formats that AI can't parse, you're invisible. Work with AI crawlers Excuse me. Work with your technical teams to make sure AI crawlers are reaching your site. And the third is consistency. is consistency. Is your messaging consistent outside of your website? AI doesn't just look at your website. It looks at your listings, your third-party profiles, your reviews, your press. It looks across the web when building an answer. If your Cvent profile says one thing, and your website says something different, that inconsistency can lead to inaccurate information surfacing in AI results. Consistency across every website where your brand appears gives you the best shot of being surfaced reliably and accurately.

So when an AI agent, whether that's ChatGPT, Google's AI search, Perplexity, or Cvent's own sourcing intelligence, when that agent is evaluating whether your property is the right match for a planner's event, it's not pulling from thin air. It's reading your venue overview and your about us section. It's parsing your amenities list. It's looking at your meeting space descriptions. It's processing your images, your floor plans, your catering options, your accessibility features. It's asking, It's asking, "Does this venue clearly communicate what it offers? And does that match what this planner needs?" Take a look at this example from the Cvent Supplier Network. Amenities and services clearly laid out. Pet-friendly, business center, AV capabilities, all of it visible, structured, readable. readable. Not just for a human planner skimming a page, but for the AI making the short list before that planner ever opens a browser. In this example, meeting space structures, photos, floor plans, square footage, room configurations, this isn't just a nice-to-have. This is the raw material AI uses to match your venue to a planner who needs a 5,000 square foot ballroom or breakout room that seats 30 classroom style. If that information isn't there, if it's incomplete, outdated, or buried in a PDF somewhere, you don't make the short list. It's that simple. In a zero-click world, your content is your first impression. And this is exactly where the Cvent Supplier Network becomes such a critical part of the equation because the infrastructure is already there. You don't have to figure out how to get your content in front of AI platforms from scratch. Brad is going to walk you through exactly how Cvent's AI capabilities are built to take this rich content and put it to work servicing your property servicing your property to the right planners at the right moments through the right channels. Thank you, everybody. >> Thanks, Sam. Hi, everyone. I'm excited to spend the next few minutes sharing with you Cvent's vision for sourcing in an AI-first world. To set the scene, I wanted to start with where we're coming from. This is how venue sourcing has worked for a long time. You know what your event needs, you just have to figure out how to express that in drop-down menus and number fields. You set the filters, run the search, get a list. And if something important to you doesn't exist as a filter option, you work around it. You've gotten good at it. It works. But, it was designed for a world before AI. And that world has changed. When we looked at how to bring AI into sourcing, we quickly realized that there wasn't one right answer. Planners are in different places. Some have been sourcing in Cvent for years, and they just want a little help from AI in the app they already know and love. Others are ready to try something completely different. We wanted to meet planners wherever they are, so we're investing in two distinct AI experiences. The first is what we call AI-assisted. This is AI layered into the tools planners already use. Same workflows, same experience, just meaningfully faster and smarter. The second is AI sourcing. This is a brand new experience we built chat first from scratch. Instead of filling out forms and setting filters, planners just describe their event. Let me show you what both of those look like, starting with a couple of our AI-assisted tools. Finding the right venue has always depended on knowing how to work the filters. You have to translate what you need into the language of a search form. And if your requirements don't map cleanly to an existing filter, you're combing through individual results to help narrow things down. We wanted search to work the way planners actually think about their events. So, we've added AI search to Cvent CSN. Planners can now search using natural language, the way they describe an event to a colleague. AI interprets the intent behind the search and services results that actually match what you mean, including results that would have been difficult to find with static filters alone. Next, creating an RFP has always been one of the most time-consuming parts of sourcing. We've made it a goal to help planners fill out an RFP form as quickly as possible. Earlier this year, we launched the ability to draft the meeting agenda with AI inside the RFP form, which is one of the more difficult sections to fill out. And that alone has saved hundreds of planners significant time. But, we wanted to go further. The full RFP has a lot of fields outside of the agenda, and most of this info needed to fill them out already exists somewhere. We wanted to help planners get from event details to a complete draft in just seconds. And to do this, we're launching RFP Builder. It's as easy as uploading a document or

pasting in an email describing your event, and AI populates the RFP form from there. No more manual entry. The draft is ready to review and send. Neither of these are brand new tools. We just took the sourcing workflow that you already know and made it smarter. Now, here's what we built when we started from scratch. As Jess shared, planners are already using AI to start their sourcing process. They're describing their event to a chatbot, expecting something useful back, chatting back and forth to refine it. That's the instinct now. But, the sourcing experience they're coming back to wasn't built for that. It was built for filters and forms, not conversations. And it's time-consuming, multiple tabs, multiple tools, a lot of reentering the same information across different steps. So, this led us to ask ourselves, how might we reimagine sourcing from the ground up for an AI-first world? What if a workflow that used to take days could be completed in a single conversation? Let's dive a little deeper into that vision. This is the AI sourcing experience. Planners can interact with it by simply chatting with it using either text or voice. Think of it like having a conversation with a trusted event planning consultant. Let's imagine I'm a planner sourcing for a client's annual event planner conference. They're planning for 2,000 attendees, three nights, and they want a city in the Southeast with great meeting space, a strong food scene, and great energy beyond the meeting rooms. Given my initial prompt, I'll first be brought to a new city recommendations experience because I didn't specify which city I'm interested in. The assistant considers details I used in the chat like Southeast and 2,000 attendees. And the assistant is smart enough to proactively ask questions that help personalize the experience and keep me moving through the workflow. In this case, asking for more criteria to figure out which option is the best fit. I might want to know which of these is most popular right now and some ballpark numbers for room rates. To answer, Cvent will be able to leverage our own proprietary data to determine a city's popularity. And we're backing it up with with extensive world knowledge of today's leading LLMs for things like historic rates, merging the best of both worlds. How about we learn more about Nashville? I can dive deeper into any of my recommendations and read city guides that are personalized for me and my specific event. These will even consider the planner org's experience in Nashville. How powerful is that? To immediately know that my client has hosted events here before. A new city vibe section will also show rich imagery and videos to help visualize the experience. At any time, I can ask relevant questions. For example, what kinds of evening events would be fun and uniquely Nashville? And just like that, I get several great ideas. ideas. You know, I'm thinking that Nashville might be a good match for this event. Let's take a look at some great venues within the city. Historically, this would have meant getting a long list of possible venues in Nashville. However, in an AI-first world, instead I get a more curated list of venues. Recommendations that are highly personalized and closely match my needs and my preferences. From here, I can read summaries of why those venues were recommended to me. And I can even see them on an

interactive map to place them within the city. I think I like what I see, so I can simply ask the assistant to add the venues to my shopping cart. Like with destinations, I can click into any venue's profile, which will be deeply personalized with new sections like why this venue is perfect for me and my event, my org's RFP history with the hotel, plus reviews left by my colleagues. And I can continue asking questions like has my client been to this venue before? Another example of Cvent's data advantage, decades of sourcing history working for you in real time. One new content section we're building is real events. is real events. Venues host dozens of events every year and we're going to work with them to publish interactive case studies so planners can be inspired by what's possible at their property. Even linking together the vendors used to produce the event and 3D diagrams. We think this is going to fundamentally change how planners evaluate venues. Because everything is housed in one platform, planners who do find inspiration can always go a step further. Say I like the 3D rendering I see in a real event and want to take that design and customize it for my needs. I'll simply be able to click into it and change it as needed. And I'll even be able to design the space using conversational prompts like can you change the layout to two tables per row? It's incredibly intuitive and seamless. I'll also be able to add this hotel to my venue list directly from the 3D experience. And now I think I'm ready to start my RFP. RFP. Filling out RFPs can be time-consuming, but not anymore. Using the context I provide during my conversation like event dates, number of attendees, and event type, the RFP is almost entirely created for me automatically. Once it's ready, I can easily review the data points that the assistant captured and because Cvent has such a rich history of actual event information, can offer up helpful suggestions like providing alternative dates that are more cost effective. Perhaps we go with those instead. Making changes to my draft is as easy as sending a message. The assistant can also recommend that I work with the CVB to help me manage activities outside of the event like transportation and dinners at nearby restaurants. When I'm happy with my RFP, sending it to my desired venues and CVBs is also as easy as firing off a message. Once that's done, I get recommended next steps based on my event details. In my case, I might want to explore some catering vendors. Let's go ahead and do that. Like with venues and destinations, the assistant recommends the catering vendors that are best suited for my event. I have a bit more time to think through my vendor sourcing, so I'll come back to that another day. Let's see if any proposals came in. Here, I'll easily be able to see all my proposals. And the assistant even compares the different options for me without needing to download a separate report, but still leaving the final decision in my hands. AI sourcing will also be able to generate new forms of content, like taking this proposal comparison and putting it into a PowerPoint I can share with my stakeholders. When I'm ready, I can simply say in the chat which venue to award to. And as always, the assistant knows to suggest the next logical step. In this case, because I awarded an RFP with sleeping rooms, it could suggest that I get started on my room block and booking site with Passkey, Cvent's solution for automating hotel room block management that lets planners easily track their bookings and inventory. We're launching destination recommendations, venue discovery, and venue RFP creation in the AI sourcing experience in open beta today at Connect. They've been in the hands of a select group of planners during our closed beta, and we're excited to make them more broadly available. We also plan to bring more features and personalization to the experience over time. And for those of you who use Cvent across the full event life cycle, including products like registration and onsite, this next part is especially relevant. If you caught the Cvent Assistant preview in the main stage roadmap session earlier today, you may have been wondering where sourcing fits in. Well, everything you just saw is also being built in the Cvent's Cvent Assistant, Cvent's AI layer that spans your entire event life cycle. One persistent, context-aware AI. It knows your history, your preferences, your upcoming events. With Cvent Assistant, sourcing isn't a separate tool you have to go to. It's part of the same conversation you use to manage everything else.

I also want to take a moment to speak to the suppliers in the room, because everything we've just covered has real implications for you, too. Everything Sam walked you through earlier is the foundation the entire planner experience runs on. These experiences are powered by your venue content. The AI doesn't just recommend venues from a list. It reasons over what's in the profile. The richer that content is, the more accurately it can match your property to the right event, and the more qualified the leads are that come through. Strong content isn't just good SEO anymore. It's how you get found by AI. Now, when those leads do come in, we want to make sure you're also set up to respond effectively. When an RFP comes in, suppliers have to respond quickly and make a strong case for their property. But, we know that writing a compelling and complete proposal takes time, and that creates pressure, which or especially when multiple RFPs land at once. To help with this, we've built Response Assistant. Response Assistant helps suppliers write stronger proposals faster. It assists with drafting the response using the details of the RFP, your property's own profile content, and even documents you upload, enabling you to respond to more RFPs with better quality proposals. It easily powers through time-consuming tasks, like assigning meeting rooms and answering custom questions. We're excited to share that Response Assistant will be available starting today for all GPI and Cvent 1 customers. And now, I'll hand it back over to Jim to close us out. >> All right, thank you so much, Brian, Sam, and Jess. That was awesome. Um you know, listen, I know we just shared a lot with you, so I want to summarize with just a few key takeaways for you here. So, first of course, AI completely

changing planners' behavior. Almost every event planner is now using AI when they're sourcing, venue discovery, RFP creation, proposal and bid comparison. And to enable this new AI-powered sourcing experience is content quality matters more than ever. Hotels, venues, destinations must provide rich, high-quality, accurate content to ensure they're surfaced to those event planners as qualified recommendations. Second is the search behavior changing the game, now shifting from SEO to now adding GEO to the mix. So, the goal is moving from winning the click to now winning the recommendation and citation, as Sam showed you. This also depends on having the best content because AI, it responds best to having a complete set of content to match what the planners are looking for. So, you're searching for things like meeting space capacity, planning policies, FAQs, location context, proximity, all of those things. So, third and finally, we are reimagining sourcing as Brian showed to make things simpler and personalized for the sourcer. So, we're going to continue to improve the Cvent Supplier Network with new AI capabilities to make it easier and faster to source. We're also building that brand new capability, AI chat, that brings together curated, personalized venue recommendations and then automatically creating the RFP without having to fill out the forms, all in one place. And as you saw, we'll also be bringing bid comparison, vendor recommendations, and automatically building that Passkey room block, as well. And we want you to know that whether you're an early adopter or not, you're jumping into the game here and there's many ways that you can engage with Cvent and our goal is to intend to make it easy for you to experiment, learn, and test. And please just go make stuff happen with AI for you and your organization. And we're going to be there as your partner every step of the way. Now, to keep the momentum going from today's session, you can come join us in the Innovation Pavilion. You can pull out your phone and scan the QR code here to sign up for any of our beta programs that you've seen today or that are going to be coming in the future. And that will give you early access to these AI-powered products so you can come in and provide your input and your feedback so that you can help us shape the future of our industry. Thank you all so much. Really appreciate your time.