Cvent Unveils More Than 70 Product Innovations at Cvent CONNECT 2026, Backed by $1 Billion Technology Investment

Powered by a team of nearly 2,000 engineers, Cvent previewed 34 net-new AI capabilities across the event lifecycle, all available now, in beta, or expected to ship later this year

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In front of nearly 5,000 in-person attendees and thousands more online, Cvent announced more than 70 product innovations across its platform at Cvent CONNECT. Designed for event professionals, marketers, and hospitality teams, the announcements spanned the full event lifecycle with a focus on near-term activation — every product is either live today, in beta, or expected to ship by the end of the year.

The depth and pace of innovation reflect the immediate impact of Cvent’s planned multi-year $1 billion investment in product development that was announced earlier in the day during the opening keynote from Cvent CEO and Founder, Reggie Aggarwal.

"In the next decade, the organizations that rise above the rest will be those that can reimagine what AI can unlock and find the right technology partners to help them execute on that opportunity," said Aggarwal. "That's why we're betting $1 billion on this moment. Events are the one channel AI can't replicate. We’re doubling down to make every one of those moments more impactful, more measurable, and more valuable to your business than ever before."

"Every capability we announced this week was built around two core priorities: making the tools intuitive, and prioritizing customer performance and outcomes," said David Quattrone, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Cvent. “With 2,000 engineers focused on those deliverables, we're able to move fast, but with intention. The products and features we're shipping this year aren't aspirational or innovative for innovation’s sake. They're built on 25 years of event data and experience, real customer workflows, and AI that actually knows how events – and the people who run them – work."

CventIQ™: The AI-Powered Engine

Cvent launched CventIQ™ last year as the AI engine powering its platform and has continued to invest in its fast-advancing capabilities. Rather than applying generic AI, CventIQ is purpose-built for the events industry, grounded in 25+ years of proprietary event data and connected to every layer of the Cvent platform. The 34 net-new AI-powered capabilities announced this week are delivered through three reinforcing foundations:

• System of Context: CventIQ connects an organization's event program data in a secure environment. This creates a rich, customized, agent-ready foundation that accelerates AI outcomes because it has specific program information rather than generic event insights.

• System of Network: With 12.7 billion attendee interactions processed in the past twelve months alone, CventIQ benefits from network effects that no point solution can replicate. Each event run on Cvent benefits from the scale of one of the world's largest event platforms — surfacing benchmarks, patterns, and predictive intelligence that gets smarter with every event.

• System of Work: CventIQ Skills delivers the system of work for event organizers and AI agents. CventIQ is embedded into the workflows that event professionals, marketers and hospitality professionals use every day. This tangible, actionable approach to AI means CventIQ delivers value in the moment, not as a separate tool or process.

The practical output of CventIQ Skills is further enhanced by AI capabilities that can be used directly through Cvent's platform or through external tools like Claude, Salesforce Agentforce, and others. This "headless" architecture means Cvent’s intelligence is available wherever teams already work, not just inside the Cvent interface.

For Event Professionals: From Intent to Execution

Cvent's reimagined organizer experience centers on a new AI-powered Cvent Assistant — a planning companion that takes an organizer's described intent and translates it directly into action across the platform. Key capabilities expecting to ship in 2026 include:

• CventIQ Skills: This new offering delivers purpose-built task packages that enable AI agents to execute event workflows directly, without human navigation of the platform. Designed to work with any agent platform, including Salesforce Agentforce, Claude, and ChatGPT, CventIQ Skills give agents the context and capability to brief sellers, build events, amplify content, and more. The result is a platform built not just for users, but for the agents working alongside them. (Expected Q3 2026)

• Cvent Assistant — Event Creation: Organizers can describe an event and upload existing documents — a budget, a past event brief, a promotional plan — and the Assistant builds a fully branded event draft in minutes, applying organizational templates and brand standards automatically. (Expected Q3 2026)

• Cvent Assistant — Venue Recommendations: For the first time in Cvent, planners can describe what they need in plain language — city, audience size, ambiance, amenities — and receive a curated shortlist of venues from the Cvent Supplier Network, each with an explanation of why it made the list. Recommendations improve over time based on historical sourcing patterns. (Expected Q3 2026)

• Cvent Assistant — Attendee Management: Organizers can paste an attendee change request directly into the Assistant, which maps every required modification across the platform — registration updates, session swaps, hotel changes, package adjustments — and presents them for one-click review and execution. (Expected Q3 2026)

• Cvent Assistant — Insights & Benchmarking: Planners can query their event data conversationally, generate custom reports on demand, and benchmark their event's performance in real time against similar events by format, industry, and audience size. (Expected Q3 2026)

• Program Knowledge Base: Organizations can upload their SOPs, naming conventions, compliance policies, and approval workflows directly into Cvent. The Assistant then draws on this organizational context to guide planners through event setup in a way that reflects how their specific organization works — not just how Cvent works. (Expected Q4 2026)

• Unified Event List and Navigation: A redesigned interface brings all event types — conferences, webinars, roadshows, trainings, field events — together in a single, unified event list. Venue sourcing, room block management, meeting scheduling, and registration data are all accessible from within a single event record. (Expected Q3 2026)

For Marketing Professionals: Reimagined Field Events and Digital Experiences

• Attendee AI Assistant: An embedded assistant that answers questions, makes session recommendations, surfaces exhibitor matches, and facilitates connections — grounded entirely in the organizer's event data, knowledge base, attendee segments, and brand voice. (Available now)

• Agenda Builder: AI reviews the full session catalog and builds a personalized schedule for each attendee based on their interests, goals, and existing commitments. (Available in beta)

• Global Profiles and Discovered Interests: Attendee behavior such as sessions attended, connections made, and content engaged with accumulates across events into a Global Profile. The AI uses those signals to sharpen recommendations over time, creating a genuine cross-event understanding of each attendee's interests. (Available now)

• Snapshots, Session Takeaways, and Audience Insights: Attendees can capture in-session moments with Snapshots (including via iPhone Lock Screen and Dynamic Island). Session Takeaways automatically summarize each session from the transcript. Snapshot Insights and Audience Insights give organizers a clear view of what content actually captured attention. (Available now)

• Network Builder and Warm Introductions: AI matches attendees based on profiles, activity, and goals — and then takes the first step by drafting a personalized introduction message with suggested conversation starters, reducing the friction of in-person networking. Network Builder is available now; Warm Introductions is in beta.

• Exhibitor Recommendations and Lead Capture Follow-Ups: The assistant surfaces tailored exhibitor recommendations for each attendee based on their profile. After booth conversations, staff can log notes and the assistant generates a personalized follow-up message delivered directly inside the attendee's app. (Both in beta)

Field Events

• Cvent Essentials: The governed field event platform — which allows field marketers to run branded, compliant events without Cvent expertise — is live and expanding. Website templates, email templates, badge printing, virtual attendance, and event approvals are all released. (Expected late 2026)

• Essentials AI End-to-End: Field marketers will be able to create, launch, and manage Essentials events entirely through a conversational AI interface via the Cvent Assistant or without logging into Cvent at all via Cvent IQ Skills. A single prompt triggers event creation, brand template application, invite deployment, and registration tracking. (Expected Q4 2026)

• Jifflenow AI Meeting Summaries and iCapture Lead Intelligence: Meeting notes, recordings, and rep observations at trade shows are unified into a single AI-generated summary with decisions, insights, and next steps — flowing directly into Salesforce. iCapture adds AI-powered lead transcription, ZoomInfo data enrichment, firmographic enrichment, and an AI Sales Summary that converts raw booth scans into actionable CRM-ready lead records.

• Budget Tracking Across All Event Types: Cvent is extending budget tracking to every event format — field events, webinars, trade show activations — creating a single financial record for the full event program. AI-powered invoice upload and extraction automates expense capture after events. (Expected late 2026)

Digital Events

On the webinar and digital events side, Cvent's acquisitions of Goldcast and ON24 bring a broader portfolio of webinar capabilities together under one platform. Together, every webinar becomes part of the same event-led growth flywheel — feeding content back into audience-building and the next event.

• Goldcast, built for B2B marketing teams running content-forward webinar programs, adds AI-powered content repurposing (Content Lab), on-demand video hubs, a Recording Studio, and a forthcoming Highlight Reel generator that uses agentic AI to clip and produce polished short-form video from session recordings.

• ON24 extends the platform into enterprise-scale programs requiring deep personalization, compliance controls, global audience reach, and AI-powered multilingual delivery across 34 languages.

For Hospitality Professionals: Reimagining How to Attract, Win and Keep Group Business

• AI Sourcing: As planners turn to AI-powered sourcing, a hotel or venue Cvent Supplier Network profile plays a bigger role in how buyers discover them. With Venue Recommendations, powered by CventIQ, planners can describe their needs in plain language and receive a curated shortlist of best-fit properties. The more complete and compelling the profile, the more opportunities venues have to get in front of the right planners and turn discovery into RFPs. (Available now)

• AI Content Assistant: Venues receive a dynamic score for their Cvent Supplier Network profile, with specific, actionable recommendations to improve their visibility in planner searches — covering content completeness, awards, virtual tours, sustainability practices, and more. (Expected Q3 2026)

• Planner Navigator: Planner Navigator is making follow-up easier with reminders and notifications for planners, lists, and next-best opportunities. With email logging in Cvent, direct messaging in Planner Navigator, and a more personalized AI Writing Assistant, sales teams will have a clearer view of every conversation and when to act. (Expected Q3 2026)

• Response Assistant: Response Assistant now helps hotel sales teams build stronger proposals with less manual work. The Meeting Space tool lets users upload assigned room files or refine details conversationally, while a smarter Custom Question experience helps answer more RFP questions faster. (Expected Q3 2026)

• Business Intelligence (BI) Reporting Assistant: A BI capability that allows hotel teams to query their performance data conversationally — understanding pacing, conversion rates, competitive positioning, and pipeline in natural language rather than static reports. Currently in beta.

• Cvent Event Diagramming: Major updates to Cvent's 3D Event Designer give planners and venues a more immersive way to visualize event setups and room configurations — reducing revision cycles and helping venues win business faster by showing planners visually what their event will look like. (Expected Q4 2026)

• AI Seating Assistant and BEO Uploader: New tools for event execution including an AI-assisted seating tool that simplifies complex room layout decisions, and improvements to the AI-powered BEO Uploader, allow venues to bring banquet event orders (BEOs) into Cvent's diagramming workflow with automation to reduce manual entry. AI Seating is currently in beta; BEO Uploader enhancements are expected Q3–Q4 2026.

• Passkey Enhancements: Cvent is overhauling the room block experience end to end — from setup and planner collaboration through guest booking — addressing the disconnected communication, manual setup burden, and error-prone version control that have long made room block management one of the most friction-heavy parts of group business. Multiple enhancements expected to ship through the end of 2026.

Availability

All capabilities announced at Cvent CONNECT 2026 are either available in the product today, in open or closed beta for customer access, or expected to ship before the end of 2026. Customers interested in early access to beta programs can register through their Cvent accounts.

About Cvent

Cvent builds technology to power the highest performing events on the planet. With its purpose-built and AI-powered platform, data insights, unrivaled ecosystem, and deep expertise, Cvent helps its customers deliver real event outcomes.

Cvent gives event professionals the technology to run in-person, virtual, and hybrid events of any size, marketers the solutions to deliver event-led growth, and hotels, venues, and destinations a leading global marketplace to win and keep business. With intelligent tools across the event lifecycle, real-time analytics, personalized attendee experiences, and $20B+ in group business sourced through the ecosystem annually, Cvent delivers the AI-driven technology, insight, and scale customers need to power high-performing events and better outcomes.

445,000+ users across 34,000+ organizations rely on Cvent. With enterprise-grade security and compliance, hundreds of industry accolades, leading customer satisfaction, 8M+ events managed, and its third consecutive year as a Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Leader for Event Marketing and Management Platforms, customers around the world trust Cvent to deliver when it matters most. Learn more at Cvent.com.