Most of the conversation about AI in our industry is about how we use it - to draft, to plan, to save time. That’s the easy half. The more interesting question, and the one fewer people are asking, is how the people we’re trying to reach are already using it.
Event planners and venue-finders have started doing their early research the same way the rest of us now do - by asking an AI assistant. ‘Best private dining rooms in London for forty people.’ ‘Heritage venues near Bath that allow late licences.’ By the time anyone picks up the phone, a shortlist has often already been drawn up, and you were either on it or you weren’t.
By the time a planner picks up the phone, an AI tool has often already drawn up the shortlist. The question is whether you were on it.
People assume search still means a page of blue links you can optimise your way up. Increasingly it’s a single answer, assembled from sources the model considers credible. There’s no second page. If you’re not in the answer, for that planner, you don’t exist.
What that means in practice is that the work of being discoverable has changed. It’s less about keywords and more about being genuinely, verifiably present in the places these tools draw from - real coverage, accurate listings, a clear and consistent story about what you actually are.
I find this exciting rather than threatening, but then I would - we’ve been building tools to get ahead of it. The brands that treat it as a real shift, not a gimmick, have a window right now while most of their competitors are still optimising for a version of search that’s quietly being replaced.
Chapter is a communications agency for landmark venues and luxury events. If this is the kind of thinking you want pointed at your brand, start a conversation.