When strategic meetings management entered the business travel lexicon around 25 years ago, its proposition was straightforward: bring fragmented activity under control, standardize processes and leverage consolidated spend to generate savings.
That procurement-led model remains relevant, but as technology automates more of the mechanics of a meetings program, the focus is expanding to attendee experience and the measurable business outcomes it can deliver. What does this mean for corporate travel and meetings managers—and where do M&E agencies now add value?
From Process to Strategy
The Global Business Travel Association's “SMM Wheel” maps the various components of strategic meetings management. Introduced in 2011 and updated in 2016 and 2024, it places stakeholder engagement at the center, surrounded by operational tasks that feed to three overarching components: value, policy and strategy.
"The industry has historically measured meetings in a very basic way, but things are changing," said Colleen Kearney, senior director, head of travel and mobility at Fresenius Medical Care and vice chair of GBTA's Meetings Committee.
While there are no immediate plans to rework the SMM Wheel, Kearney is beginning to view the framework differently. She sees a need for an additional strategy layer around stakeholder engagement, before buyers move into the core operational components—meeting registration, sourcing and procurement, payment and reconciliation, data analysis and reporting, and planning and execution—most of which she expects will become increasingly automated.
"You have to have a vision," she said. "And that's your strategy before you get into solutioning, even from an AI perspective or an automation perspective." Identifying the needs of the business and its stakeholders, she added, should frame the program before the operational tasks begin.
Kearney argues that “return on experience” is emerging as a more meaningful measure than traditional cost savings metrics because it attempts to answer a simple question: Did the meeting create a business outcome that would not have happened otherwise?
"By experience I also mean storytelling, content and engagement. Automation will take over logistics, registration, communication and sourcing. Think about it in terms of consumer brands—they aren't just advertising anymore, they are creating brand experiences, installations, and engagement with customers in ways that the meeting industry is starting to adopt because of the return from the experience," she explained. "This isn't just putting together the logistical pieces of a meetings puzzle but creating an emotional attachment to the organization for those that will drive results for the company."
For meetings managers, that could mean implementing processes to assess what attendees learned, whether useful connections were formed, how the event contributed to employee engagement, and whether it generated sales opportunities or supported customer or employee retention.
"That doesn't come from negotiating a lower hotel rate," Kearney said. "It comes from influencing behavior."
Agencies Moving Upstream
It's no surprise then, that some of the biggest M&E agencies are investing in building out their event production capabilities.
FCM Meetings & Events announced on Thursday the launch of a new brand campaign, “Be Moved,” highlighting how businesses can leverage meetings and events to drive engagement through experiences that capture attention, spark connection, and leave audiences feeling genuinely moved. It prioritizes emotional connection, while still aligning with broader business goals. The campaign comes on the heels of the meetings agency leaning into event production investment via its March acquisition UK-based brand experience agency Fresh earlier this year and building out that side of its product and service menu.
"Ideation, workshopping, discovery sessions, understanding the purpose of an event or meeting and coming up with the strategy—that will always be human-led and collaborative," said FCM M&E global general manager Simone Seiler.
FCM M&E Americas business lead Gabriella Antoniotti added, "We're now taking that next step by increasing our investment in creative production and redefining what the meetings and events experience can be."
BCD M&E also has expanded its creative services division, known as The Collective, which provides integrated marketing campaigns, event production and experience design. The division operates across the US and UK and recently entered the German market.
In May, the agency also launched Strategic Production Management, an offering it says combines strategic oversight, creative thinking and scalable production delivery.
"Clients with moderate to mature SMM programs see the appeal and understand that production has been living in its own world for a while," said Jenna Monell, director of strategic accounts and solutions, production and creative at BCD M&E. "Bringing that under the umbrella of an existing SMM program feels like the next logical step."
Beyond providing visibility over production spend, Monell says clients are looking to ensure brand storytelling is consistent across a broad portfolio of meetings and events—and that the attendee experience measures up.
"Even for small meetings, clients want to tell a good story and deliver a strong experience," she said. "[Creative production and agenda design] is not just for 10,000-person events anymore. It's for 100-person internal events, where [corporates] want their teams to feel just as valued."
"Companies don't want internal attendees to see how they market themselves externally, come to an internal event and ask: Why didn't I get that experience?"
AI Sharpens Engagement Insights
Alongside its push into experience, FCM M&E is investing in its proprietary technology stack and trialing 16 AI tools to support the operational delivery of managed meetings programs. Known collectively as Backstage, the internal tools are being tested in Australia, with rollout planned across the UK and Southeast Asia in Q4.
Beyond taking on repetitive and data-heavy SMM tasks, AI is also helping meetings professionals shape attendee engagement strategies.
According to Northstar Meetings Group's latest quarterly Pulse survey, 48 percent of meetings professionals in North America already use generative AI to plan and manage meetings and events. Content creation is the most common use case, cited by 42 percent of planners. Twenty-nine percent use AI to analyze attendee feedback, with the same proportion applying it to sourcing. A further 19 percent use the technology to predict trends and attendance, while 35 percent plan to do so.
The opportunity extends beyond planning. Kearney pointed to tools that monitor engagement in real time and prompt attendees through messages, apps or QR codes, enabling organizers to adjust the experience as an event unfolds. Such capabilities could provide richer insight into how participants interact and where attention falls away.
Established meetings technology providers are investing heavily in those capabilities. Cvent's recently announced $1 billion investment in AI upgrades, for example, includes attendee experience tools designed to support greater personalization and networking.
Other tools like Bizzabo, RainFocus and Swapcard also harness AI to offer personalized recommendations to attendees and provide real-time engagement metrics to meeting managers. But these are specialized tools and "many lack the scale, operational footprint and historical data that the major [M&E] agencies have," according to Kearney.
"The largest agencies already sit on enormous datasets that include travel, meetings, attendee behavior, spend, and supplier performance. That gives them the potential to create benchmarking and predictive insights that newer entrants cannot easily replicate," she said.
That data advantage is also shaping corporate expectations. Tammy Morgan, VP, sales and account management, strategic meetings at Amex GBT Meetings & Events, said AI "raises the standard for insight, speed and personalization."
She believes the next generation of SMM will be defined by three factors: connected data across travel, meetings, expense and supplier ecosystems; AI-driven decision support and automation; and measurable business outcomes focused on engagement, experience, compliance and return on investment.
That view closely aligns with Kearney's ROE argument. Looking ahead, she said suppliers that connect meeting experiences to measurable business outcomes will "create significantly more value than one that simply manages registrations, sourcing or bookings."
"As meetings become fewer and more purpose driven, the ability to measure and optimize ROE will become the industry's most important differentiator."