Cvent committed more than $1 billion to event technology at its annual CONNECT conference in Nashville on July 14, 2026, and launched a new research arm alongside a rebrand. The scale of the investment reflects a specific conviction: as AI makes digital content infinitely reproducible, in-person gatherings become a more defensible and valuable enterprise asset.
The numbers support that view. A commissioned study by Forrester Consulting fielded in June 2026 found that 70% of business and event leaders say live experiences matter more, not less, as AI floods every channel with synthetic content. The finding gives marketing and operations leaders a concrete data point to defend or expand event budgets.
Trust concerns are equally sharp. Separate research from Censuswide, commissioned by Cvent, found that 85% of respondents say AI-generated content has made it harder to build trust with audiences. Conversely, 81% said audience trust increased after an in-person event. For a VP of Marketing weighing channel allocation, those figures make physical events one of the few formats that actively repairs the credibility problem AI proliferation creates.
The trust deficit and the data gap
Audience expectations are rising simultaneously. The Forrester study found that 77% of leaders say demands for personalization and ongoing engagement keep climbing. That puts pressure on event teams to deliver more sophisticated, data-connected experiences rather than one-off programs.
The research also surfaces a critical operational gap. Only 36% of organizations fully capture and integrate event data across all their events. Another 71% say managing events through disconnected tools leaves them with limited visibility into program performance. Most enterprise event programs still cannot draw a clear line from event activity to pipeline or revenue, even as pipeline and revenue are now the most-cited priorities leaders set for their events.
AI adoption inside event teams is underperforming expectations as well. While 59% of organizations already use AI for event content, only 37% say it is paying off. The early-adopter phase has not yet translated into measurable returns for the majority, pointing to a tools and integration problem as much as a strategy problem.
Cvent's $1 billion answer
Cvent's response includes the largest investment in its history, with a plan to direct more than $1 billion into technology, AI, and product innovation. The spending is tied to continued development of CventIQ, the company's AI-powered platform layer designed to unify sourcing, registration, attendance, and engagement data into a connected picture that can be mapped to business outcomes.
The platform's existing footprint gives the data-network argument weight. Cvent has powered more than eight million events, is used by 89% of the Fortune 100, and connects nearly 340,000 venues and more than 150,000 planners, driving over $20 billion in sourcing volume annually. With 445,000-plus users across 34,000-plus organizations, the compounding data effect the company describes is not theoretical.
A new research center for industry benchmarks
The Cvent Center for Event Insights, launched at CONNECT, will operate at the intersection of events, hospitality, and technology. It will produce original research, expert analysis, and benchmark data that practitioners can use to make the case for event investment and improve program design. The Forrester study previewed at the conference signals a focus on quantified proof over general advocacy.
For event operations and marketing teams, the Center represents a new source of third-party-validated data they can bring into internal budget conversations. The combination of Forrester's methodology and Cvent's platform-scale dataset could produce benchmarks harder to dismiss than typical vendor white papers. Full flagship research is expected to follow the preliminary findings.
Why this matters for hospitality and events professionals
For those working in AI for Hospitality & Events, the Forrester numbers translate into a clear mandate: physical events are becoming a primary trust-building channel in an AI-saturated market. The 36% data-connectivity figure also reveals the competitive risk of continuing with disconnected tools. Teams that cannot tie event activity to revenue will struggle to justify budget, even as the demand for in-person experiences grows. The next practical milestone is whether CventIQ can close that data gap among its own customer base, a metric that will matter to anyone managing event strategy in the months ahead.
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