Ari Daie
It’s not every day that one reports on a company that has the stated goal of “changing the ticketing industry.” But that is what FEVO is aspiring to do with the first generative AI toolkit for social commerce. Early last month, the technology company announced the launch of an AI beta for its ticketing platform. This new innovation aims to leverage large language models (or LLMs) to enhance FEVO's enterprise platform for merchants. This, in turn, will provide sellers and marketers with efficiency at every step of the conversion funnel — from audience segmentation and targeting to the deployment of new sales campaigns.
FEVO founder and CEO Ari Daie says, “It gives a seller or marketer a personal assistant inside of our platform where they can do prompts. They can write: ‘Please build out 10 different creatives for me for all of my theme nights, starting with ‘Star Wars Fans Night,’ the next being ‘Teacher Appreciation Night,’ the next one being the corporate offer I want to do for Bank of America or American Express or anybody else and so forth.”
FEVO is rolling out its AI beta in a phased approach, starting this summer. In doing so, it is looking to utilize generative AI in three key areas: one, automation of workflows and offer creation; two, productivity tools to give sellers and marketers more time to devote to other tasks; and three, automation of campaign management.
Daie says, “We’re giving sellers and marketers a bunch of time back in their day. People who work in the ticketing industry have a lot of repeatable tasks. Year over year, a lot of their campaigns and promotions are pretty similar. The opposing team might change, the date might change, and you might have some pricing changes. We can automate a lot of that for the reps themselves. AI is basically being embedded to increase your productivity and give you hours back in your day to either do more high-touch stuff or just take a break and enjoy life. You don’t have to work until 9 p.m. You can clock out at 7 p.m. instead. Long-term, you can — through AI — personalize down to the person you are reaching out to what kind of offers to put in front of them. And you’re doing that in a holistically automated way.”
So, why continue innovating in this way? Daie believes there are two kinds of businesses left in the world: “technology businesses” and “obsolete businesses.” Whether you are selling tickets or growing oranges, he contends, “If you are not thinking about tech, you are writing your own organizational obituary. AI is not that cutting edge. We use Alexa and Siri all day long, right? ‘Alexa, order me paper towels.’ ‘Siri, where is the closest Starbucks?’ What’s the difference if I am opening up my tool and asking AI, ‘Could you replicate all of my offers from last year, but start with the next closest scheduled event and increase price by 10%?’ I’ve actually just done a day’s work in four minutes.”
Since its 2016 founding, FEVO has positioned itself as an innovator and a pioneer in social commerce, introducing industry-first sharing and networking tools into the ticketing process for over 750 blue-chip brands in music, sports and live entertainment. To date, it has helped these brands sell more than 15 million tickets to approximately four million consumers.
“Think about e-commerce, in general. When it was born 25 years ago, it was basically people in Silicon Valley trying to figure out how to turn your laptop or PC into a point-of-sale terminal where you can input your credit-card number and transact. So, for the last quarter-century, we’ve all been pushed into that very solitary journey as consumers when we want to buy something. And it actually doesn’t work for live events. Live events are inherently social. If I want to take you and [a couple of others] to, say, an NBA basketball game and we want to all sit together, what do I have to do? I have to call, email, text: ‘Who’s in? Who’s out?’ It’s a massive effort for the consumer to coordinate everybody. And if you want to sit together, I or you or one of the others has to buy everyone else’s tickets, and eventually you all pay me back with Venmo or some other quid pro quo. I think that is an inherently flawed system. And for the brand or the sports team, they’re getting one data touchpoint.”
He continues, “FEVO in a nutshell has created a social check-out experience that we provide all of the sellers and marketers across all of the major leagues, minor leagues, NCAA, etc. So, you can decide, ‘I’m going to buy my one or two tickets to a Charlotte Hornets game for me and my significant other and I’m going to name my group ‘Ari’s Crazy Night Out.’ And then as soon as I transact, a unique link is generated to me that I’m going to email out or socially post to you and the others. And when someone clicks on that link, we’re sent right back to that sports team’s webpage. You click the Buy Tickets button, it now reads Ari has invited you to join the group, and each person can buy their tickets their own way. We can invite other people, and we no longer have to pre-coordinate everybody and then hunt them down to pay for the tickets after they’ve been bought. The sports team, meanwhile, is getting more data and more sales. And because we integrate with all of the big ticketing systems, we can lump and group-seat people together.”
And now, FEVO is bundling its sophisticated social-commerce tech with smart AI. Where is it all headed? Daie says to a brighter future for all concerned: “Ultimately, what will happen is you’ll see massive amounts of micro-segmentation and targeting. AI will quickly learn on behalf of an organization when, how often, and when not to bother that customer. That means your touchpoints with that customer will only become more and more relevant.”
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