Attendee Journey Mapping + AI | ISM World 2026
Updated: Sep 2
✨ Objective: Create an intentional attendee journey for ISM World 2026 by connecting programming, networking, interactive experiences, and the event app into one cohesive experience—using AI to help attendees navigate content and extend the value of the sessions and connections most relevant to them.
Approach: Map the full attendee journey to create a more connected experience—helping participants discover relevant content, engage meaningfully, reflect on key takeaways, and turn insights into action.
The journey connected several touchpoints:
Discover → Personalize → Learn → Participate → Connect → Reflect → Act
Programming + Digital Journey
The event app served as a central guide to the experience, helping attendees navigate a multi-format agenda that included keynotes, breakouts, workshops, lightning sessions, peer discussions, and networking opportunities.
AI-supported summaries and recommendations added another layer to the digital journey, helping attendees more quickly identify relevant content, digest key themes, and determine where to focus their time based on their interests and professional needs.
This allowed the app to function as more than a schedule—it became part of the programming strategy.
Extending the Journey Beyond Sessions
Working with an experiential partner, we also incorporated participatory experiences throughout the physical conference environment, including the Futures Web, Reflection Collection, and Taking Action.
These experiences invited attendees to respond to what they were hearing, compare perspectives with peers, and contribute their own insights to the conference conversation.
The ISM World 2026 sizzle footage captured this strategy in action—from facilitated peer interaction and networking to attendees actively contributing their perspectives to the Reflection Collection.
Using AI to Listen at Scale
AI also played an important role after and throughout the experience.
I used AI-supported analysis within the event app to synthesize session insights for attendees while also identifying broader themes and programming recommendations for future planning.
AI helped make a large volume of attendee input more actionable.
For example, the data revealed an important tension: attendees showed significant interest in AI programming, but also wanted more practical applications of AI and greater balance across leadership, talent, resilience, and other business topics.
Those insights could then inform decisions around:
Future agenda and topic mix
Session formats and level of interactivity
Speaker briefs and content expectations
Networking opportunities
App recommendations and content discovery
Sponsored versus educational programming
Future attendee journey design
Outcome: The result was a more connected conference experience in which the physical program, digital app and interactive experiences supported the same attendee journey.
Instead of viewing the agenda, app, networking and activations as separate event elements, they were designed as interconnected touchpoints—using AI both to help attendees navigate the experience and to help the event team understand what audiences wanted next.
💡The takeaway: AI became most valuable when paired with intentional journey mapping: helping attendees find meaning in a complex conference experience while giving the programming team better intelligence to shape events to come.
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