AI and the Future of Trade Shows: Why Human Connection Is Becoming More Valuable
Article written by Kate Blom Lowery
We spend a lot of time talking about what artificial intelligence is going to replace. But I recently came across a prediction from Mark Cuban that made me think about a different question: What is AI going to make more valuable?
Cuban predicts that as AI-generated content becomes increasingly sophisticated and difficult to distinguish from reality, we're going to see something seemingly counterintuitive: more face-to-face interaction, more live events and more people getting out from behind their screens. I've spent a significant part of my career in trade shows, live events and experiential marketing, and I think he's right. I've always believed that people want to connect with their tribe. That's one of the reasons live events have always mattered. But this new era has me thinking and writing more about the experience itself. If AI makes face-to-face connection even more valuable, simply bringing people together isn't enough. What happens when they get there? What makes the experience worth their time, travel and attention? And what can we create for them in person that they simply can't get behind a screen?
In Why Trade Shows Matter More in the Age of AI — And How to Measure Their Value, I explored an idea that originated with Janet Dell, CEO of Freeman. In her article about the “Presence Premium.” Dell makes a compelling case that as digital communication becomes increasingly abundant, the relative value of being physically present with another person rises.
Her perspective prompted me to think about what that shift means specifically for trade shows and experiential marketing, and how brands can begin measuring the business value of presence, trust and face-to-face engagement. Cuban's prediction adds another dimension to that conversation. If Dell identified the growing value of presence, Cuban is suggesting AI may accelerate the conditions that make it even more important. Which leads me to what I believe is the next question for our industry: If AI makes face-to-face interaction more valuable, are we creating live experiences that are valuable enough to justify showing up?
AI Is Changing Why People Attend Trade Shows
Artificial intelligence is already transforming marketing, sales and the customer journey. Buyers can use AI to research companies, compare solutions, summarize product information and evaluate competitors before ever speaking with another person. Add websites, webinars, product videos, social media, reviews and virtual demonstrations, and buyers have access to more information than ever before.
Information is no longer scarce. Trust, access and authentic human connection are. That changes the role of trade shows. Historically, trade shows were important places to obtain information about companies, products and solutions. Today, an attendee may arrive at your booth already knowing a great deal about all three. So perhaps we've been asking the wrong question when we wonder whether technology will reduce the need for live events. The question isn't whether someone can get the information without attending. Of course they can.
The better question is: What can someone get by being there that they couldn't get online?
A conversation with an industry expert. A hands-on product demonstration. An unexpected introduction. Access to an executive or engineer. The ability to ask a complicated question and then ask three more based on the answer. The opportunity to experience a product instead of simply reading about it. And sometimes it's something much harder to quantify: looking someone in the eye and deciding whether you trust them enough to do business together. In a digital world increasingly crowded with spam, phishing, automated outreach and AI-generated content, that kind of human trust matters more than ever. Those aren't simply marketing interactions. They're trust-building moments. And as our digital experiences become increasingly automated and AI-generated, I believe those moments become more valuable.
Your Trade Show Booth Shouldn't Be a Three-Dimensional Website
This shift has real implications for trade show strategy and exhibit design. If attendees can learn almost everything about your company before they arrive, your exhibit shouldn't simply recreate information they can already find online. It should create an experience that can only happen because someone showed up. Let people touch the product, test something or compare solutions. Give them access to someone who genuinely understands their challenge. Teach them something. Create an environment where a prospect wants to spend ten minutes with your team instead of ten seconds looking at your graphics.
This doesn't mean technology becomes less important. AI, interactive technology and digital experiences can make live events better. But the technology should facilitate human interaction rather than become a substitute for it. That's an important distinction. The opportunity isn't to make physical experiences compete with digital by becoming more digital. It's to become better at delivering what digital can't.
From Stopping Power to Staying Power
Our industry has traditionally placed enormous emphasis on stopping power, and for good reason. A trade show floor is competitive. Strong architecture, messaging, graphics, lighting and technology help a brand earn attention. But attention is only the beginning.
I think successful trade show strategy needs to focus just as intentionally on staying power. Once someone stops, why should they step inside? Why should they stay? Who do they meet? What do they learn? What can they experience? What conversation becomes possible because of the environment you've created? Those questions shift exhibit strategy away from simply asking, What should our booth look like? toward a much more valuable question:
What does our presence need to accomplish?
That's where exhibit design becomes strategy. I've written before that the booth isn't the experience. What happens inside it is. The architecture, graphics, lighting, technology and furniture all matter, but they create the conditions for an experience. The real value happens when someone walks inside, discovers something, interacts with a product, learns something useful or has a conversation that changes what happens next. The booth creates the environment. What happens inside it creates the value.
Digital Creates Reach. Live Experiences Create Depth.
There's another important implication of AI for B2B marketing. Historically, buyers often needed salespeople to access information. Today, they don't. Tomorrow, AI may make finding, analyzing and comparing that information almost effortless. What becomes more valuable is access to the right people. Imagine a prospect who has already researched your company, reviewed your products and compared your solution with competitors. Then they arrive at an industry event and spend 15 minutes with your engineer, CEO, product specialist or account team. That conversation may accomplish something months of digital marketing couldn't. Not because digital marketing failed, but because it succeeded. It created the awareness, knowledge and curiosity that made the human conversation more valuable. That's why I don't believe the future of B2B marketing is digital versus physical. Digital creates reach. Live experiences create depth. The brands that understand how to intentionally connect the two will have an advantage.
Making Human Presence Worth the Investment
If AI increases the value of face-to-face interaction, the answer isn't simply attending more trade shows or building bigger exhibits. It's becoming more intentional about the investment. Before designing the next trade show experience, brands should ask why their audience is coming, what they can experience that they can't experience online, who they should have access to, what conversations need to happen and what should happen next. Those answers should influence everything from exhibit architecture and traffic flow to product demonstrations, meeting spaces, technology, staffing and post-show follow-up. And we need to measure the results accordingly.
In my earlier article on the Presence Premium, I argued that traditional metrics such as booth traffic, badge scans and lead counts don't tell the complete story. If human connection is becoming more valuable, we need to understand what that connection actually influences: pipeline acceleration, relationship depth, customer retention, account expansion, executive engagement, brand trust and ultimately revenue. The goal isn't simply proving that people showed up. It's understanding what happened because they did.
AI May Be Reminding Us Why Live Events Matter
There's an interesting irony in all of this. For years, technology was sometimes positioned as a potential replacement for live events. Virtual meetings would replace travel. Digital experiences would replace physical ones. Online communities would replace industry gatherings. AI may ultimately accelerate the opposite. The more efficient our digital lives become, the more valuable certain deeply human experiences may feel: being in a room together, having an unscripted conversation, experiencing something firsthand and building trust with another person.
I've written before that awareness may start online, but trust is still built face-to-face. Mark Cuban's prediction reinforces that idea, but I think it also presents a challenge for those of us who design, build, market and measure live experiences. If human presence is becoming more valuable, we have a responsibility to make that presence worthwhile. It isn't enough to build a beautiful trade show booth. It isn't enough to put technology on the show floor. And it isn't enough simply to show up. We have to create environments intentionally designed for what people increasingly can't get anywhere else: real interaction, real expertise, real experiences and real human connection.
AI isn't making trade shows and live events obsolete. It is actually, reminding us exactly why they matter.
About the Author
Kate Blom-Lowery is Chief Marketing & Operations Officer at Steel City Displays and a marketing and live-events professional with more than 20 years of experience in marketing and communications, including more than a decade in the trade show industry. She writes about experiential marketing, trade show strategy, audience engagement and the evolving role of human connection in an increasingly digital world.