Tobias Zwingmann, an AI and trade fair expert was an employee of Deutsche Messe AG for over ten years. After completing his part-time master's degree in IT management, he became the company's first data scientist. In 2020, he founded the AI startup RAPYD.AI, where he now advises companies on the use of AI, including trade fair companies.

"Anyone who has ever exhibited at a trade fair knows that participating in a fair is an extremely complex product," explained Zwingmann. Questions about stand construction, power supply, or marketing materials need answers. To provide customers with faster information and relieve the trade fair teams, chatbots based on ChatGPT, for example, can be a valuable aid. They are fed with all relevant information about participating in the fair and can respond at the push of a button, without customers having to tediously search for information on a website. At the same time, the workload for the hotline and the project team is significantly reduced.

According to Tobias, "trade fairs often stop communicating after the fair closes" as there seems to be little content afterwards. “But such an event actually produces content for the whole year in one week," Zwingmann is convinced. With the help of AI, for example, content from all conference stages can be collected, summarized, and the most important information filtered out. Another AI can then create content pieces for social media from this, leading to good visibility in the respective communities and a higher engagement rate.

"Soon, we will experience that the exhibitor and product search will also be handled via language models," Zwingmann predicts, looking into the near future. An AI, fed with all information about the exhibiting companies, the conference program, and other relevant data, is the key. Visitors simply need to call up the chatbot and describe their need: "I am the production manager of a company in the automotive industry and am looking for robotics solutions," Zwingmann gives as an example. The AI can then specifically name the suitable companies, their stand numbers, and the contact persons at the stand. This allows visitors to efficiently plan their trade fair visit and specifically target relevant companies. "This would take the search function on the trade fair website and in the apps to a new level," says Zwingmann.

The topic of AI in the trade fair economy will become increasingly relevant in the future to quickly bring the whole bouquet of information closer to visitors and exhibiting companies and relieve employees, Zwingmann is convinced.