AI can now write a polished, radio-ready song in seconds. So what happens to events when the machine can do it cleaner and faster than a room full of people?
That’s the uncomfortable question at the heart of the latest episode of The Meeting Room, where M&IT’s Paul Harvey sits down with Sam McNeill, general manager for the UK and Europe at SongDivision, a company whose entire business is getting non-musicians to write original songs live on stage.
You might expect him to be fighting AI. He isn’t. Sam uses it every day, and SongDivision even uses AI at the start of some workshops, generating a song in seconds before asking the room to write one together. He admits the AI version can sound better. Then he explains why it doesn’t matter.
But he doesn’t hold back on the risks. Sam describes an industry figure who sat down in a workshop and realised within minutes that he was listening to an AI-written script, an experience that’s “memorable for the worst possible reason.” Generic, “AI slop” events, he warns, will come under fire. And his prediction for organisers is blunt: the moment events stop feeling human, “people stop attending and ticket sales drop.”
Watch the full episode on YouTube and listen on the go on Spotify.
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A desire to travel led Holly Patrick to the business meetings and events world and she’s never looked back. Holly takes a particular interest in event sustainability and creating a diverse and inclusive industry. When she’s not working, she can be found rolling skating along Brighton seafront listening to an eclectic playlist, featuring the likes of Patti Smith, Sean Paul, and Arooj Aftab.
