Artificial Intelligence: A New Tool for Member Self-Service

At any conference, many attendees likely have similar questions: Where's the nearest restroom? Usually, there's an association staff person or member volunteer at the ready to answer. But last year, at the Citrus Valley Association of Realtors' Real Estate Revive Conference, participants turned to Amazon's Echo device instead. The virtual assistant--which many now know on a first-name basis as Alexa--was there to help. "We were looking to get our attendees excited about the future of voice technologies," says Doug Devitre, a developer hired to program a set of Alexa "skills" for the conference.