Experiential marketers have wasted no time experimenting with AI-fueled activations and applications to drive personalization and streamline the work behind the scenes. But this year, marketers are ready to accept AI as a member of the team. Enter: AI agents, which are shifting from “curiosities” to game-changing assistants for marketers and attendees.
Demonstrating both its capabilities and the power of AI agents in a tangible way, CollegeVine, which uses a network of students, data and AI agents to alter how institutions recruit and retain pupils, powered a recent summit with AI agents. Among tasks, they took care of scheduling and room requests in real time, and provided tips for getting around the city; conducted research on each attendee ahead of the event, then used that information to create networking conversation-starters; and developed strategic seating arrangements for the summit. (Read more from our senior editor Kait Shea here.)
At Automatica 2025, ABB leveraged agentic AI with ABBigail, an AI-powered metahuman who served as the company’s technical expert, digital host and brand storyteller. “Designed as a bilingual 38-year-old robotics engineer with eight years of experience and an expert in her field, she was trained on vast sets of product data and more than 70 topics, and could explain complex robotics concepts while feeling friendly and approachable to attendees,” our beat reporter Anna Huddleston writes. (Check it out here.)
Perhaps the most important piece of news is that many developers are already integrating agentic AI into their products. We explore a host of new offerings in this update on artificial intelligence at trade shows, including platforms with built-in AI agents that can perform tasks ranging from lead prioritization, to personalized follow-up messaging, to synching insights into a CRM without any manual involvement, and precise campaign performance measurement.
And if you need one, or want to experiment with one, they’re apparently pretty easy to build. At Dreamforce last year, one of the “big draws” according to our report was a hub where attendees could build their first AI agent right there on the show floor.
Image credit: iStock/Vertigo3d
