We're off to Web Summit in Lisbon
Next week the 24social team is at Web Summit in Lisbon, one of the world's biggest tech events. Here's what we're hoping to bring back for pubs, bars and venues.
Next week the whole 24social team is heading to Web Summit in Lisbon. We're a fully remote team, so it's a rare few days together in one place, and a chance to see where technology is heading before it reaches the pubs, bars and venues we build for.
A very big room
Web Summit is one of the largest technology conferences in the world. Last year it welcomed 71,386 attendees from 157 countries, with 2,725 startups exhibiting, 869 speakers and 1,857 investors. Centre Stage alone fills an arena, and the exhibition halls next door carry on for what feels like miles.
Most of it isn't about hospitality, and that's the point. The tools your guests use every day get shaped in rooms like this, and they turn up in pubs a year or two later.
What we're hoping to bring back
AI that does the job, not just the chat. AI agents that book, order and answer questions on someone's behalf are all over this year's programme. We want to understand how they'll find a venue, read its menu and opening times, and make a booking, so the websites we build for you are ready for them.
How people find a local. More guests now ask an AI assistant where to go rather than scrolling a list of links. We're keen to hear how search is changing, and what it means for keeping venue details accurate and easy for machines to read.
Keeping the human bit. Several sessions this year are about putting people at the centre of AI. Hospitality is about people, so we'll be listening for ideas that save your team time without making the guest experience feel automated.
Product and design craft. We'll spend time with other product teams to see how they keep software simple, fast and good-looking on a phone, which is where most of your guests meet your website.
The future of work. There's a whole Future of Work track. Staffing is one of the biggest challenges in the trade, and we want to see which tools actually take admin off busy managers.
What we learned, right here
We won't keep it to ourselves. When we're back, we'll share our own thoughts on everything we learned, right here on the updates page, with the ideas we think matter most for pubs, bars and venues.
Photos: Stephen McCarthy/Web Summit via Sportsfile, CC BY 2.0.
