SPECIAL GUEST!! Carina Bauer 📵 Your Next Event Needs LESS AI | Ep. 568
September 25, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readThe Goosebumps Business: Why Your Next Event Needs Less AI and More Intention
When Carina Bauer, CEO of IMEX Group, describes her industry, she borrows a line from a colleague: "Event people are in the goosebumps business." It captures what happens when people gather in a room with peers—there's excitement, there are literal chemical reactions. And the last thing you want is AI getting in the middle of that.
IMEX's flagship North American event in Las Vegas draws over 17,000 attendees and facilitates 92,000 meetings. But Bauer isn't here to talk about scale. She's here to argue that the most important thing event marketers—and really any marketer—can do right now is think differently about design. Not as aesthetics, but as intention.
Design as the Invisible Force
Bauer defines design as "the invisible force that shapes how people feel, what people trust, and what people remember." That applies whether you're planning a conference, a small dinner, or a marketing campaign. The mistake most people make is treating design as decoration. Instead, she says, start with the question: What is the intention behind the connection you're trying to create?
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:16) **Introducing Carina Bauer & the "Design for Joy" Concept** - Jay welcomes back Carina Bauer, CEO of IMEX Group, and frames the conversation around designing events and marketing with humanity and joy.
- 2 (02:16) **Design as Intention, Not Just Aesthetics** - Carina defines "design" as the invisible force that shapes how people feel, trust, and remember, going beyond just how something looks.
- 3 (03:20) **Tactical Human Moments vs. Deeper Connection** - Jay asks if "human moments" like puppy cuddling or rock painting are the answer, and Carina explains they are a symptom of a bigger shift.
- 4 (05:49) **The AI vs. Humanity Balance** - Jay asks how to leverage AI without losing the humanity, using the example of AI-generated speaker proposals.
- 5 (07:57) **The "Coffee Queue" Principle & Data Analysis** - The best connections often happen spontaneously, like in a coffee queue; AI’s role is to enable those moments, not replace them.
- 6 (09:36) **Positioning an Event as a Strategic Investment, Not a Cost** - Jay asks how to pitch an event to a C-suite that sees it as an expense.
- 7 (11:51) **The Rise of "Humanity" as a Business Line Item** - Jay predicts that just as every company now has an AI strategy, they will soon have a "humanity" strategy.
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Show Notes
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Carina Bauer thinks the next luxury is disconnection: a room full of real people, nobody glued to a screen. The CEO of the group behind the world's biggest meetings industry trade show tells Jay Schwedelson that design is really about intention, not aesthetics. She also shares a sharp way to get leadership to see your next event as strategy instead of just another cost.
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Best Moments:
(02:16) Why design is the invisible force that shapes what people feel, trust, and remember
(03:50) In-person events
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