Delivering customer value with AI tools
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already impacting the events industry, enhancing customer experiences, streamlining operations, and unlocking new possibilities. We talk to some of our super-users at RX, to cut through the hype and understand what it means for our teams and our customers, now and in the future.
RX is fortunate to be part of RELX, a global provider of analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers, which invests $1.9 billion annually in technology and is among the UK’s biggest AI spenders. Bank of America recently named it one of the top 25 companies poised to benefit most from AI.
RX’s Chief Digital Product Officer Gaby Appleton is in no doubt about the benefits this brings to RX and our customers. “I would say that being part of RELX makes us the best-positioned event company in the world with regard to AI,” she said. “RELX has been experimenting with AI tools for the best part of two decades. And RX is well-positioned to draw on the expertise of some 12,000 technologists who work in the organisation, and so that we can use it to help serve our customers better and improve our operational efficiency.”
RX’s strategic approach to AI is driven by customer and business needs. “We’re not interested in AI for its own sake,” explained Gaby. “Too often you hear people talking about AI as a technology in search of a problem. We start by identifying the problem and then explore how AI can help. We focus on pragmatic experimentation over big bets, testing small, fast, and affordable solutions to learn quickly. We want to use what is already out there, whether its borrowing from our RELX colleagues, or from external vendors who are building the models we need. As part of RELX, we also uphold responsible AI principles, ensuring transparency and respect for personal data. Trust is central to everything we do.”
Using LLMs to work faster and smarter
One of the most wide-spread potential impacts of AI at RX is the use of Large Language Modules (LLMs) to handle repetitive and time-consuming tasks, enabling RX teams to focus on more creative and meaningful customer-facing activities.
All RX employees have access to the LLM Console, a secure LLM developed by our RELX colleagues at Lexis Nexis. It works like ChatGPT but runs in a private, protected environment, so users can upload confidential company documents without worrying about them being used to train external AI models or being shared outside RX.
“Everybody should have access to an LLM,” said Gaby. “The LLM Console is great for language-based tasks that are time consuming or repetitive in nature, such as doing basic research, summarising multiple documents, extracting key details and so on. It can’t do your thinking for you - you must tell it exactly what you want, and how to structure the information - but you will get a serviceable answer in a fraction of the time it would otherwise have taken you. My team use it regularly. It means we can spend a lot less time researching and writing reports and devote more of our energies to developing innovative digital solutions for our customers. Overall in RX we are seeing usage of the LLM Console grow month over month as employees around the company start to see the benefits.”
Impactful marketing, made easier
Well crafted, targeted and impactful content generation is key to attracting exhibitors and visitors to RX events, and AI-powered creative tools are proving invaluable to the task. Widely used by RX marketing teams, they support research, planning, and content creation for blogs, social media, product descriptions, press releases, emails, and more.
“So far we have been using them mainly to elevate our content and to cut down on production time,” revealed Kate Youngstrom, VP Marketing for RX US. “What we have seen first and foremost is a reduction of creation time per marketing team member, freeing them up to spend time on marketing strategy and delivery. While we are still A/B testing the results of the content itself, we can clearly see the improved quality through email copy, website copy, presentation and strategy messaging. We are also starting to use AI-powered tools to build presentation templates, video scripts and expanding outside of the traditional copy writing we have been focusing on. We particularly like the ability to store and reuse content tailored to different brand voices.”
Our UK teams are also piloting AI video editing tools to transform long conference recordings into engaging, bite-sized content. “Every RX event features expert insights and industry trends, but watching full sessions can be time-consuming,” said Brand Activation Manager, Nick Nagle. “The tools help us extract key moments and repurpose them into short videos, blog content, and social media clips. This allows customers to quickly access the most valuable insights on the platforms that suit them best—without having to sift through lengthy recordings.”
Customer-centric sales and operations
RX champions value-based selling which is about getting to know each customer’s business and objectives and then curating a solution which will help them to achieve their specific goals. Here, AI is helping sales teams turn customer interactions into actionable insights.
“In the UK and US, we are using an AI-powered revenue platform as a training and advice tool to improve the quality of our sales conversations,” explained Robin Tapp, Chief Information Officer. “The platform integrates with Microsoft Teams to transcribe and analyse what is being said during our sales calls, based on key words and complex concepts that we have trained it to look out for. For example, it looks for key elements of value-led selling and tracks mention of our Business Builder suite of digital solutions to understand how they are being presented to customers. The tool provides feedback to individuals while also making insights available to managers for coaching. We have already seen evidence of its positive impact for both RX, our salespeople, and our customers.”
Business Builder digital solutions accelerate our exhibitors’ ability to reach, capture and boost sales leads, while giving them unique data insights to improve their returns from participating in events. Product Marketing Manager Milagros Gamero is responsible for developing the sales and customer tools that support its global adoption – a job that has been made much easier with AI. “I am passionate about helping exhibitors to get the most from Business Builder and AI helps me to create engaging support materials in multiple languages, quickly and easily,” she said.
“I use AI-powered tools to speed up content creation, drawing on my uploaded knowledge base and checking the wording fits with RX’s brand voice. It helps me keep my writing concise, relevant and engaging – important for keeping customers engaged who may have pressing demands on their time. I also use them to create designs and then instantly translate them with one click, automatically adjusting the text to fit the design. Of course, I get the translations validated afterwards, but it speeds up the production process dramatically. I have also been trialling tools to turn text into engaging ‘explainer’ videos and am excited to start creating customer videos that exhibitors can access in any language.”
The potential for AI to improve operational efficiency and customer satisfaction at our events is widely acknowledged, and in Brazil and Mexico our teams are already on the case.
“RX LATAM is implementing AI tools to review post-event operational reports and customer service feedback.” explained Carlos Abreau, Operations Director. “This enables us to identify key areas for improvement and generate actionable insights for upcoming editions. For instance, AI analytics is helping us to pinpoint operational bottlenecks, such as inefficiencies in floor plan layouts and service delivery, resulting in smoother event experiences. Additionally, sentiment analysis allows us to decode customer feedback, helping us better understand attendee expectations and tailor our offerings. By using AI to listen, learn and adapt, we aim to deliver more personalized experiences and proactive solutions.”
Using AI to generate more meaningful connections
Creating meaningful connections – or matchmaking – lies at the heart of everything we do at RX. We have always used tools to process and analyse data from our data lake, but AI is helping us to make the process more scalable and accessible.
“One example is using AI to help us match the defined product interests of exhibitors and visitors across different shows,” said Jeffrey Asare-Boamah, Global Director of Product Analytics. “For instance, if we collect product category preferences but use slightly different wording at each event, AI can recognize and match these categories—even if they’re not written exactly the same way. This makes it easier to analyse and compare customer interests across multiple shows, helps our sales teams to ensure a healthy balance of exhibitor and product representation at our events, and can even highlight if a customer might be better served by exhibiting at another event in our portfolio. Previously, it might take teams several weeks to bring this data together, but now the information can be matched on a daily basis, as registrations are happening.”
“We are also using AI-driven modelling to gain a clearer understanding of visitor intentions and actions,” added Gaby. “We know that sometimes what people indicate as their intent and interests during registration and what they do at our events are two different things. Analysing visitors’ use of our Colleqt QR Code solution on exhibitor booths and matching it to the information we have about exhibitors, is helping us to make more accurate recommendations, for the benefit of both buyers and sellers.”
What’s next for RX and AI?
Looking to the future, RX is exploring the potential for AI applications in areas such as sentiment analysis, event personalisation and multi-lingual chatbot platforms.
During a visit to a recent trade show in London in November, Gaby was also interested to see the large number of vendors offering AI platforms that can digitise the ‘story of an event’ through capturing, summarising and extracting trends and expert insights from talks, session videos, meetings records, digital interaction and product launches, and creating new insights from all the activity at the event. “We know how transformative attending in-person exhibitions can be and see a huge advantage for our customers in being able to capture and create new insights from all the activity at our events,” she said.
Longer term RX is excited about the possibility for more complex multi-step workflows to be automated using AI "agents.’ “This could be transformational for things like the "last mile" of exhibitor onboarding and event preparation, coaching customers through all the things that need to be done,” Gaby explained.
“What we absolutely don’t anticipate is face to face interactions being replaced by avatars,” she added. “Even though it is technologically possible, our core business is about doing business face to face. There is something about the magic of bringing people together that isn’t going away, and AI tools can help us augment and enhance that magic.”
For more information on how RX is using digital and data analytics to enhance our face to face events and drive growth for our customers, check out our Business Builder suite of digital solutions and get up to date with latest digital developments.
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