In the world of higher education, AI is typically applied to learning and development initiatives, but overlooked when it comes to the day-to-day operations that keep universities running. So CollegeVine, a company that uses a network of students, data and AI agents to alter how institutions recruit and retain pupils, aimed to flip the script with the debut of its Vineyard Summit, which brought 200 higher-ed leaders, cios and technologists to The Langham, Chicago.
The first-of-its kind forum, hosted July 20-22, was designed for peer-to-peer sharing of best practices and use-cases for integrating AI into administrative campus operations. So what better way to showcase the technology’s potential—and the brand’s offerings—than to have attendees live it? And that’s exactly what CollegeVine enabled. From schedules to food orders to networking, the company leveraged internal and external applications of AI to deliver smooth, personalized experiences at scale.
“We were really focusing on integrating [AI] into the experience of the event without beating them over the head,” says Christina Tan, head of growth at CollegeVine. “We were introducing it as accessible and highly useful to them, so that when they have conversations about, ‘How do I make this impact the student experience,’ they can speak from their own personal experience on engaging with AI.”
For a closer look at the event strategy and implementation of AI, we asked Tan for her insights on what worked, what didn’t and why. Here’s the scoop. (Agency: Analog Events)
PERSONAL CONCIERGES AND PRE-EVENT HYPE
CollegeVine got the audience hyped for the event well before it took place. In fact, as soon as attendees booked their flights, they received a personal AI concierge, which took care of tasks like scheduling and room requests in real time, and provided tips for getting around the city.
Attendees were additionally each sent a custom luggage AirTag, created with AI, that served as a small event teaser. And when they arrived at check‑in, a welcome kit was waiting and tailored to the off‑site group they would be part of during the summit.
“We were really concerned with the meta experience of: We’re going to a conference about AI, but we can’t then also have people download an antiquated app that they use for one time,” says Tan. “So how do we make this event also feel different than other conferences? And how do we do that in a way where AI is seamlessly integrated? The first way was the AI concierge.”
FUN FACT: During the event, one attendee got stuck in a stairwell and used their AI agent to get (human) help.
CURATED CONNECTION
To enable personalized on-site networking opportunities, CollegeVine conducted research on each attendee ahead of the event, then used that information to create “table topic” cards, which functioned as curated conversation starters based on the backgrounds of the people sitting together. And it wasn’t all business talk. If research showed that two attendees at the table liked to bake in their spare time, the table topic might prompt them to share a dish they’ve made in the past two weeks that they’re proud of.
“We used Perplexity Pro, which is basically an AI web browser, to do deep research on a lot of our attendees, basically surfacing up personal facts about them that are available on the internet or a podcast they did, or whatever it may be. And then we used that to create custom table topics based on who’s at that table,” explains Tan.
F&B AND SEATING ARRANGEMENTS
Speaking of tables, the event team turned to OpenAI 03-Pro to develop seating arrangements for the summit to ensure that colleagues were seated together, that competitors were not, and that the appropriate ratio of company employees was part of each group.
AI also came to the rescue just before the event took off. “There was a situation where the actual table-mapping was different from our internal table-mapping,” says Tan. “So we had OpenAI [re]mapping so that we could provide it to our on-the-ground team, and they could create name tags and seat people at the right spots.”
Attendees also ordered certain meals and drinks using their AI concierge. At lunch, they summoned fare from their phones and had it delivered straight to their table—meaning there were no painful food lines. And when they needed a pick-me-up, attendees could text a drink order, with baristas at the ready to pour an espresso or latte.
FUN FACT: CollegeVine ensured that its summit was eco-friendly. Ultimately, 87 percent of event materials from the show floor completely avoided the landfill thanks to renting, reusing, recycling and composting efforts.
MANAGING OFF-SITES
Beyond the core Vineyard Summit event, CollegeVine hosted off-sites spanning three quintessential Chicago experiences—dinner at Michelin‑starred Alinea, a private suite at Wrigley Field and a river‑cruise supper. Naturally, the outings, the itinerary and the swift attendee notifications related to each of them were handled using AI.
“Our team was actually running other events at the same time, too,” Tan says. “We started the hands-on planning and execution of the [summit] in late March, invites went out in April and the event was in July. So it was a very tight timeline to get the whole event together, and leveraging AI was really critical to that while not compromising on the experience, but actually elevating the experience beyond what’s typical.”
AI’S LIMITATIONS
As much as the technology enhanced the Vineyard Summit, AI still has its limitations, and it’s something CollegeVine learned how to take in stride over the course of the planning and execution process.
“AI is still a work in progress. So sometimes dealing with minor hallucinations when it came to pretty concrete information, like [booking] flights, was challenging,” says Tan. “So navigating expectations for the attendees and making sure that we train the AI to know when to escalate versus when to reply was definitely something that we learned a bit on the fly. But now we have a much better perspective of: here’s what we trust AI to be able to handle with our attendees, versus here’s what we’d expect for a human team to handle.”
Photos: Courtesy of CollegeVine
