Has the Promise of Agentic AI Arrived in the Event Industry? MCI Thinks So.Has the Promise of Agentic AI Arrived in the Event Industry? MCI Thinks So.
In an exclusive interview ahead of its new product launch today, MCI VP of Technology & Innovation Jeff Moore talked about how the company is addressing next-gen CX solutions with the launch of its voice-enabled AI agent.
August 19, 2025
Voice-based AI agents, long a promise more than a product, are advancing a rapid clip. In some industries, they are outperforming call centers and beginning to replace human labor in industries from healthcare to retail, according to venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Businesses like Walmart, Sephora and Amtrak are increasingly adopting voice-enabled AI agents to enhance customer experience (CX), streamline operations, and improve efficiency. These AI agents, capable of handling a wide range of tasks through voice interaction, are impacting various industries—from financial to insurance—by offering 24/7 availability, personalized responses, and cost-effective solutions. Now it’s arrived in the events sector.
MCI USA has added voice capabilities to its Jade AI agent, integrated into the company's OneSystem Plus registration and housing management platform. The new functionality allows event organizers, exhibitors, and attendees to speak naturally on their desktop or mobile devices and receive instant answers in 57 different languages.
MCI USA VP of Technology & Innovation Jeff Moore
"Jade is the most advanced AI agent serving the registration and housing marketplace," said Jeff Moore, vice president of technology and innovation at MCI USA. "Jade Voice is one more way we are removing friction from the housing, registration, and lead collection process."
To find out more, we caught with Moore to demo the product and ask questions about Jade’s new voice capabilities. Read highlights from our interview below or watch the full video.
Real-World Impact
Since launching in 2024, Jade has been used for 78 registration and housing events and more than 100 lead-retrieval events, handling approximately 30,000 responses from attendees and exhibitors. The AI agent responds to inquiries within an average of 24 seconds—dramatically faster than traditional customer service channels.
"When you talk about customer service and you say we respond within 24 seconds of every request that comes in, that sets off a light bulb in most customers' minds," Moore said during a demonstration of the technology.
According to MCI's data from the last 30 days, Jade successfully handled and resolved 66% of all registration and housing interactions and 82% of lead-retrieval service inquiries without human intervention.
A sample of what users might see and do
A sample request that Jade can process
How It Works
During a live demonstration, Moore showed how Jade can answer questions about event details, check registration status, update personal information, and send confirmation emails—all through natural voice commands. The system can also see what users are doing on registration pages in real-time, allowing it to proactively troubleshoot issues before users need to contact customer service.
"If you're filling out your registration form and maybe you miss a required field or you've submitted your payment and get an error processing the payment, Jade can see that problem and help you troubleshoot it in real time," Moore said.
For security, Jade uses various authentication methods, including confirmation numbers, reservation numbers, or one-time passcodes sent to users' email addresses when they need to make changes to their information.
Beyond Customer Service
While the voice capabilities represent a significant enhancement to Jade's customer service functions, Moore revealed that the AI agent's capabilities extend much further.
"Jade offers a variety of services, customer service just being one component," he said. "We also do data analysis using Jade. We do automatic lead scoring in the app, where we take all the attendees' interests and the exhibitors' interests and generate a score and a quantitative and qualitative description of that lead."
In a recent experiment, MCI gave Jade a client requirements document and access to their sandbox environment, and the AI was able to set up an entire event without human involvement—suggesting a future where AI could handle significant portions of event setup, testing, and deployment.
The Future of Event Tech
Moore believes AI-powered customer service will soon become standard across the events industry. "I think across all industries we're going to see customer service in general at the basic level move to AI," he said. "What we're offering with Jade is just going to be table stakes. It'll be expected for every service."
For event organizers, the technology offers advantages in efficiency and attendee satisfaction. The system includes an "AI supervisor" that monitors all of Jade's responses and makes recommendations for knowledge base improvements and new features based on user interactions.
As AI continues to evolve, Moore sees a future where these tools will handle increasingly complex tasks: "Eventually it's going to be AI setting up the site, AI testing the site, AI deploying the site, AI developing all the customizations. It's going to get here a lot faster than most people think."
Despite this rapid technological evolution, Moore emphasized that the human connection remains central to events: "The key thread through all of it is human connection,” he said. “If we do get to the age of abundance where nobody has to work anymore, there's still going to be events where people get together just to see each other."
