Groupize has become the latest meetings technology provider to deploy artificial intelligence to automate the booking intake process as AI moves deeper into meetings management workflows.
The company has announced plans for an integration with group booking provider MeetingPackage that it said will 'route' requests according to a meeting's size, type and complexity.
The planned integration will direct each meeting either to MeetingPackage's Instant Quote proposal-generating capability or to Aime Smartbids, Groupize's AI-powered agent for venue sourcing and negotiation, according to the companies.
"AI shouldn't just make it easier to send an RFP. It should help determine whether you need an RFP at all," said Charles de Gaspé Beaubien, founder and chief commercial officer at Groupize.
"If it's a straightforward meeting and we have the rates, availability and connectivity, the best experience may be to simply book it. If it's larger or more complex, Aime SmartBids can use AI to source, communicate and negotiate. MeetingPackage gives us an important supply-side connection to make both experiences possible," de Gaspé Beaubien explained.
Corporate users will be able to book accommodation and meeting space across MeetingPackage's hotel network, with access to group rates and availability, day delegate rates and meeting packages.
Groupize said connectivity with hotel sales and catering systems is live, while integration with property management systems and instant booking will be available "by the end of the year".
AI routing gains ground
The move puts Groupize alongside Bizly and Hubli, which have developed similar AI routing capabilities around their self-service tools.
At BTN's Strategic Meetings Summit in Chicago last week, Bizly founder and CEO Ron Shah introduced Bizly Router, describing it as "like ChatGPT for your meetings intake".
Bizly customers can now describe a meeting in natural language, after which an AI-powered decision tree processes the request based on event size and spend, company policy and internal approval requirements, according to Shah.
"It will ask the required questions and then take you to the right path until you get to the fulfilment," he explained. "So, if it is a large event, it will take you down the Cvent path [if a client works with Cvent], and if it's something self-service, it will come to our product or any product. It's very product-agnostic. You can select your products and providers. … If [the meeting] requires an RFP, it will automatically generate the RFP."
Shah said Bizly also advises customers on structuring decision trees to drive savings and efficiency, including setting parameters for self-service and determining when a travel management company or agency should become involved.
"Rethinking that entire flow from start to finish is what we help you do; and rethinking some of the assumptions that we've all been operating with, for example, that we need RFPs. I don't think we need RFPs other than for very large events. Why do we need RFPs? Pre-negotiate them."
Shah argued that most offsite meetings are "rinse-and-repeat events" that could be pre-negotiated with preferred suppliers, avoiding repeated contract and price negotiations.
"Let's just do that once up front … and make 90 per cent of events click, click, buy. That is really what is winning adoption. People don't want to do contracts. They shouldn't have to for 90 per cent of offsites. And for the other 10 per cent, you have an RFP," he said.
Hubli in June introduced an 'intelligent' meetings request form that automatically routes simple meetings below a specified spend threshold to self-service booking. More complex events are assigned to internal event planners or agencies, while an approval process can also be triggered before sourcing begins, according to the company.
Hubli founder and CEO Ciaran Delaney, who also spoke at last week's Chicago summit, said the MRF builder, together with the platform's new agentic search capabilities, provides "one front door" for all meetings and events.
"Initially, you configure your policy, design the meeting request functionality and, critically, the triage rules and decision trees to distribute to the right solution. There's one front door. Then, automated routing into the different solutions to suit your needs, whether it's for a major, complex event or simple meeting," he explained.
Delaney said TMCs and event agencies can "plug into Hubli" to source venues and manage budgets, commission collections and room blocks. For simple meetings, EAs and internal event bookers "have direct access to search and book via our technology". This now includes a conversational search experience with an AI agent that "knows your policy, knows your preferred hotels, embeds your contracts and knows your office locations," Delaney explained.
"Every time you use it, it's learning the preferences of the user and building out a personalised experience for them," he added. "By chatting to the system, it actually starts building the RFP, so 75 per cent of the RFP is already completed by the time you click in to submit it to hotels."