On January 31, MPI Academy, the education arm of Meeting Professionals International, will hold its first certificate course on using artificial intelligence in the meeting-planning process.
The four-hour program, “A.I.-Enhanced Event Professional Certificate,” costs $305 for members and $405 for non-members, and will be held four times in 2024. After the inaugural January course, there will be sessions on April 24, July 18, and October 24.
With the surge in A.I. tools and the growing number of ways planners are leveraging them (read case studies here) the course has a lot of ground to cover. It plans to focus on “essential knowledge and practical skills” through six content modules: After an introduction to A.I. concepts and terminology and a discussion of ethical considerations surrounding A.I., the course dives into a variety of practical applications for the events industry. These include chatbots, personalized marketing campaigns, and data analytics, and the modules offer hands-on experience with A.I. tools.
The course concludes with a case-study project. Teams will work together to come up with ideas and recommendations for enhancing an event using A.I. technologies, then present and discuss their findings.
Other A.I. Learning Opportunities
MPI is not the only organization working to educate planners on how A.I. can be applied to their work. The Event Leadership Institute begins its “Enhancing Events with A.I. Certificate” course on January 23. The online program, lead by Nick Borelli, runs five weeks, offers 7.5 CMP credit hours, and costs $695 (or $556 for members of the Professional Convention Management Association, Corporate Event Marketing Association, and ELI). Borelli, who will run the certificate course a total of five times in 20204, is also offering a three-hour workshop at PCMA’s Convening Leaders Conference on Sunday, January 7 in San Diego.
In fact, it would be hard to find a meetings-industry educational event that doesn’t tackle the topic of A.I. For example, at Convening Leaders, there’s a session called “A.I. Idea Exchange: Sharing Use Cases in Event Planning”; in late February, Catersource + The Special Event will offer several A.I. sessions, including “Transform Your Meetings & Events with A.I. Tools You Need Now!”; and at Pharma Forum in March, pharmaceutical planners will hear about “Envisioning the Organization of the Future with A.I.”
MeetingsNet will also be hosting an educational webinar “AI for Event Planners: Leverage the Power or Proceed with Caution?” with speakers Beth Surmont, FASAE, CMP-Fellow, CAE, vice president, event strategy & design at 360 Live Media, and Alexis Bauer Kolak, director, education & learning services at Smithbucklin. The December 13 event is eligible for CE credit.
Finally, the meetings-specific A.I. engine Spark, launched by PCMA and Gevme, has the Spark Enterprise Accelerator for training on that platform. The training is aimed at enterprise users, with the cost set at $25,000 for up to 20 participants and including full Spark access for all participants.
