There are many exciting things that people look forward to in their lives and few are more exciting than their wedding day. While it can be a magical adventure that will last a lifetime, it also brings with it the arduous task of planning. Rather than stress over what should be a day of dreams, brides and grooms should be able to enjoy every moment from beginning to end. That is what the founders of eazyplan have done: taken the hassle out of planning and implementation. Find out more about how they turn plans into lasting memories.
NE: Can you share a story that inspired you to get involved in AI?
MP: Event business is full of inefficiencies and largely is still happening over the phone or email with data stored on paper and in excel tables. We were facing these problems and doing the same repetitive tasks every day being part of the industry with Magic Day that plans weddings, social and corporate events in Europe. Automation seemed the most efficient way to up our game and eazyplan was born.
NE: Describe your company and the AI/predictive analytics/data analytics products/services you offer.
MP: Eazyplan helps event professionals offer better service to their clients by automating pre-sales quotes that usually occupy more than 70% of their time. It provides the unique project management experience for all vendors working on an event and automates majority of their communication by providing the information they need when they need it.
Eazyplan uses AI to automate planning of weddings, corporate and social events. It improves the understanding of clients’ preferences and planning flows with each interaction and streamlines planning for clients while saving professionals from repetitive mundane tasks and wasted efforts.
NE: How do you see the AI/data analytics/predictive analysis industry evolving in the future?
MP: The AI industry will develop faster than anyone can imagine today. As it becomes the new “arms race” and all the major government and business powers in the world join in, the speed and magnitude of improvements will grow with each month.
NE: What is the biggest challenge facing the industry today in your opinion?
MP: The biggest challenge facing the AI development today is lack of professionals. Many of those who could contribute, consider it to be too complicated or out of reach. While in reality platforms offered by Google and Amazon make getting stared really easy and it will be getting even easier with time.
NE: How do you see your products/services evolving going forward?
MP: Growing data sets and user base will help eazyplan’s machine learning models develop themselves to a level when they will be empowering people planning events do the best choices and save tons of money and time. The professionals of event industry, from venues and event planners to photographers, florists and others will enjoy an unprecedented level of help for their administrative tasks and will be able to focus on what matters most – delivering great experiences to their clients and generating bigger returns.
NE: What is your favorite AI movie and why?
MP: Minority Report with Tom Cruise was the most influential AI movie for us. Although it looked rather fantastic in the beginning of this century, the logic behind the system they used to predict upcoming offense was very inspirational and surely inspired many entrepreneurs to think wider.
NE: What type of advice would you give my readers about AI?
MP: Now is the time to jump aboard, experiment, develop new ideas. This is the biggest opportunity since the industrial revolution to shape the way our world will look like in the future. Don’t waste this chance!
NE: How does AI, particularly your product/service, bring goodness to the world? Can you explain how you help people?
MP: What unites planning a wedding, offsite business meeting or a fashion show? Huge excitement in the beginning and feeling lost a bit further along the way. Unclear process, lots of repetitive tasks, manual actions and mistakes that lead to waste of time and money – all this creates a stressful and unpleasant experience for the people planning events.
Eazyplan shows them a clear path that is straightforward and streamlined. It automates many of the tasks and makes planning a simple and enjoyable experience, no matter what you are planning – a wedding or a Christmas party for your whole corporation.
NE: What would be the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you during your company’s evolution?
MP: Imperfect data fed to our early ML models brought us suggestions of alcoholic drinks in kid menus and burlesque shows for board meetings.
NE: What are the 3-5 things that most excite you about AI? Why? (industry specific)
MP: AI allows us to automate the repetitive administrative tasks that steal majority of time from event professionals. It also improves quality of communication and planning as it can pick and share to the project management tool the important pieces of information, avoiding the human factor that often leads to mistakes. AI makes event planning an enjoyable process for professionals and their clients who used to stress about it a lot. AI empowers event professionals to do more with less resources for their clients and assure their experience is at the best level.
NE: What are the 3-5 things worry you about AI? Why? (industry specific)
MP: For many people in the event industry AI sounds as something extraterrestrial and too complicated and this attitude can slow down the adoption. Quick adoption of new technologies is the key for event industry professionals to stay relevant in the new digital era. AI is not taking anyone’s jobs in this business, it empowers the vendors to deliver better services spending less time and resources.
NE: Over the next three years, name at least one thing that we can expect in the future related to AI?
MP: AI will enter majority of industries and areas of our lives. AI will be the main differentiator of leaders in each industry. Developing AI solutions will become much easier with new services and platforms that are entering the market today.