Recently Sustainability Keynote Speakers Alison Burns and James Taylor (AKA The Ethical Futurists) co-keynoted at the European conference of Meeting Professionals International on the topic of how the meetings, conferences, and events industry could become more sustainable.

Sustainability and Creativity in the Meetings and Events Industry

• Alison Burns’ perspective on sustainability in the industry
• James Taylor’s perspective on creativity and collaboration in the industry

The Role of Generative AI in the Meetings and Events Industry

• Introduction to Generative AI and its impact on the industry
• The importance of collaboration between humans and Generative AI
• The limitations of treating Generative AI as just a tool

Collaboration between Humans and Generative AI

• How to view Generative AI as a collaborator, not just a tool
• The benefits of collaboration with Generative AI in generating better ideas
• The role of humans in asking questions and building creative collaborations

Opportunities and Challenges of Generative AI in the Meetings and Events Industry

• Opportunities for innovation and creativity with Generative AI
• Challenges and concerns around job displacement
• The importance of human and Generative AI collaboration for future success

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hello, I am James Taylor, a keynote speaker specializing in creativity, innovation, and future trends. Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking at the European conference for Meeting Professionals International (MPI) held in Brighton, England. MPI is a group of professionals who organize conferences, events, meetings, and incentive events worldwide. It was an amazing event, and I had the opportunity to co-keynote with Alison Burns on our program called The Ethical Futurists. In this program, we explore the future and what it might look like. My focus was on innovation, technology, and future trends, while Alison looked at sustainability from an ESG perspective. Together, we had a fantastic combination on stage that made for an interesting dynamic. It was a little bit unusual having both a male and female as co-keynotes, but the audience enjoyed it immensely.

During the event, Alison discussed sustainability and how to approach it from a meetings and conferences perspective. I, on the other hand, talked about creativity and collaboration and how it applies to the world of events. I also touched on the role of Generative AI, a technology that has been gaining a lot of attention lately. Generative AI is getting very close to the Turing Test in its ability to imitate humans, and it has the potential to make events more innovative, creative, and sustainable. One of the Generative AI platforms I talked about was ChatGPT.

I noticed that sometimes, when referring to these Generative AI tools, they are referred to as just tools like a paintbrush or a pen. However, I believe that this limits our perspective. Rather than just tools, we should think of them as collaborators or co-creators. This shift in perspective can help us generate better ideas and foster more creativity and sustainability in events. One of the advantages that humans have in collaboration with Generative AI is our ability to ask questions. This is where our creativity comes into play. By asking better questions, we can get better results.

It’s understandable that people are concerned about whether Generative AI will take their jobs. However, we believe that it will create new opportunities for collaboration between humans and machines.