Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting plenty of attention in the trade show industry. But for exhibitors, the important question isn’t, “What is AI?” It’s much more practical:
What can AI and ChatGPT actually do to help me exhibit better?
The answer: quite a lot.
Before the show, an Exhibit Manager can use ChatGPT to review a lengthy exhibitor manual and identify important deadlines, required forms, shipping information and potential late charges. AI can help research the expected audience, develop pre-show emails, sharpen booth messaging, create staff briefing materials and even generate realistic role-playing exercises for booth personnel.
During the show, AI can help organize what your staff is learning from visitors. Feed it notes about recurring questions, objections and interests, and it can identify patterns you might otherwise miss. Instead of discovering after the show that visitors misunderstood your message, you may be able to recognize the problem on Day One and make adjustments for Day Two.
Then comes the area where exhibitors have historically left the most money on the table: post-show follow-up.
A badge scan gives you a name. It doesn’t necessarily give you a qualified sales lead.
AI can help organize booth notes, separate prospects by interest and urgency, summarize conversations and prepare different follow-up messages for different types of prospects. It can also help identify people who need immediate attention versus those who should enter a longer-term nurturing process.
Finally, AI can assist with measurement. It can help organize costs, opportunities, pipeline information and sales results into a management summary that goes considerably further than reporting how many badges were scanned.
But AI doesn’t replace the Exhibit Manager. It doesn’t establish objectives, build relationships, take ownership of leads or make important business judgments.
It makes a knowledgeable Exhibit Manager more capable.
After more than 50 years in the trade show industry, I see AI as one of the most useful tools exhibitors have ever been given—not because it changes the fundamentals of successful exhibiting, but because it can help us execute those fundamentals faster and better.
The exhibitors who gain the greatest advantage won’t necessarily be AI experts.
They’ll be the ones who learn where to use it, what to ask it, and what to do with the answers.
Richard Erschik is an author, speaker and trade show educator. He is the author of The AI-Enabled Exhibit Manager and The AI Exhibitor Edge.