There’s a reason Expo! Expo! IAEE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition is circled on the calendar of nearly every serious exhibitions and events professional each year: it’s where an entire industry shows up, in one room, to compare notes on what’s actually working right now.
Vendors will always tell you their tool is the answer. Consultants will always tell you their framework is the fix. Expo! Expo! is different in that it is the ONE EPIC EVENT where peers, competitors and colleagues speak plainly about what they tried, what broke and what they’d do differently.
If you want to get ahead of where the industry is moving next, Expo! Expo! 2026 on 16-18 November in Milwaukee is where you want to be!
Why AI & Technology Deserves a Track of Its Own
Most “AI in events” content right now falls into one of two traps: breathless hype about a future that never quite arrives, or vague reassurance that nothing is really changing. The AI & Technology: Implementing Practical Use Cases Immediately learning track skips both. Brought to you by GES | OnPeak, this track is built for people who are done questioning whether AI belongs in their events operation and are ready to formulate how – which workflows to automate first, which decisions still need a human in the loop and how to keep pace without breaking what already works. It’s less about the technology itself and more about the judgment required to use it well, which involves the solutions most event professionals are seeking.
Sessions to Add to Your Schedule
Before It Breaks: Using AI to Build Risk-Ready Leadership in Live Events
This session puts you inside the moment every event professional knows too well: the vendor who goes dark, the speaker who’s late, the crowd that feels off. You’ll build Risk-Ready Leadership©, learning to map risk across the full event lifecycle and use AI to pressure-test your plans before reality does it for you. Bring a laptop and an AI account, because this one’s hands-on from the start.
AI for Trade Show Sales: Practical Strategies That Work
This session is built for sales teams who know AI is reshaping the competitive landscape but haven’t cracked how to apply it. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll learn to identify new exhibitors and sponsors, analyze competitor events and personalize outreach in ways that actually move revenue. It’s designed specifically for those new to using AI in exhibition sales, so you can walk in without experience and walk out with a plan.
Possibility Executed
with Artificial Intelligence
Let’s reframe the entire conversation: the question isn’t whether to use AI, but who your organization becomes because of it. This session breaks down the real landscape of generative and agentic AI tools to reveal three concrete ways they can help you create, work and lead. If your organization is feeling the pressure to move from experimentation to real competitive advantage, this session provides the framework to do it.
Operationalizing AI Agents in Your Marketing Workforce
Tackle a question every marketing leader is quietly asking: which tasks should go to an agent and which still need a human? You’ll get a practical guide to identifying the right workflows for automation, selecting tools and managing the human-AI collaboration model that actually makes agents worth deploying. Real examples from teams already running agents mean you leave with more than theory.
Next-Level Engagement: Using AI to Design Interactive Attendee Experiences
Turn learning into a live brainstorm! Using AI as a creative partner, you and your fellow attendees will generate networking formats and interactive ideas built for lean teams and tight budgets. Bring the energy and leave with a page of ideas ready to test at your very next event.
Build Your AI Second Brain: Practical Claude Code Workflows for Event Teams
This session speaks directly to the scattered-notes and disconnected-tools reality most event teams live in. Learn how to structure context, capture institutional knowledge and build reusable Claude Code workflows that make AI genuinely reliable across planning, content and coordination. You’ll leave with a workflow you can put to use immediately, not just a new set of ideas to file away.
Event Tech Lab: Map Your Stack, Fix the Gaps and Plan What’s Next
This session skips the vendor pitches and instead moves you through a guided mapping exercise that traces exactly where your attendees and data get stuck between registration, onboarding, lead capture and reporting. Built for professionals a few years into their event tech decisions, it trades sweeping strategy for one specific, costly gap you can actually fix and sends you home with a 90-day plan to fix it.
Make This the Track That Sets You Apart
The industry professionals poised to lead won’t be the ones who waited to see how AI shook out – they’re the ones who showed up, asked hard questions and built the muscle to make confident technology decisions under real conditions. Expo! Expo!’s AI & Technology learning track gives you that head start, in the company of the people best positioned to challenge and sharpen your thinking.
Register for Expo! Expo! 2026 today! Explore the different ways to save and lock in the BE SMART rate before it ends on 30 September – your future self, and your next event, will thank you!
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