During INSIGHT Encore, the final event in our INSIGHT 2026 event series, RainFocus VP of events Rodney Hart remarked, “This year was our best yet!”
INSIGHT Encore features highlights from INSIGHT, discussion of the biggest industry themes that emerged, and statistics on the event’s performance. From overall attendance to business impact, INSIGHT 2026 proved compelling — and we received 13% more positive feedback from attendees this year.
Let’s dive into a few of INSIGHT’s key themes and most exciting announcements:
1. Agentic AI Eliminates Friction for Events Teams and Their Attendees
RainFocus executives announced RainFocus Nexus, RainFocus’ new agentic AI, on day one of INSIGHT. RainFocus Nexus uses specialized agents designed to handle everyday tasks that event marketers and their attendees face. The speakers noted that AI can handle unstructured data and layer in context, allowing event professionals to focus on strategy. To further emphasize the impact, a mainstage exclusive led by Salesforce demonstrated real-life examples of how agentic AI can reduce friction and delight attendees.
2. Unifying Data to Eliminate Silos
The rise of agentic AI has made it even more important to dismantle data silos to create a single source of truth. Several client sessions at INSIGHT praised the unified nature of the RainFocus platform. “Everything we do starts, stops, or runs through RainFocus,” said one speaker. Disparate tools lead to fragmented customer journeys. The RainFocus platform unifies these data streams, ensuring that sales, marketing, and event teams operate from the same dataset. RainFocus Nexus brings the positive impact to the next level.
3. Templatization and Governance As the Foundation for Scalability
Since the release of our Base Module, many customers have gained new efficiencies by templatizing their events — adding several smaller, localized events to their event programs. Several clients led case study sessions showcasing how they leveraged RainFocus templates to achieve greater governance and scalability without sacrificing quality. In addition, Adobe integrations earned several mentions for increasing efficiency.
4. The Shift From Content Consumption to Community Connection
Event industry leaders repeatedly noted shifts in attendee expectations: People attend events primarily for connection, not just content. “Humans are meant to build communities, not exist in crowds,” explained Naomi Clare Crellin, CEO of Storycraft Labs, during a session. Fostering belonging and psychological safety promotes this community. Similarly, Workday presented a session on its “Rising Signs” campaign, which used personality archetypes to foster peer-to-peer connection. Throughout INSIGHT, we also used popular Braindates to create intentional, participant-led networking opportunities.
5. Unlocking the Content Supply Chain
Last but certainly not least, several speakers offered strategy tips on building a high-quality content supply chain by repurposing event content for downstream marketing and sales use. Valuable event content is often under-utilized. But through our partnerships with platforms like Adobe and Workfront, RainFocus has automated the flow of session data and assets into broader marketing ecosystems (like Adobe Experience Manager). This connection makes it easier to build continuous engagement and ROI long after the event concludes.
These are only a few of the big trends from INSIGHT. Want to revisit conference sessions or catch up on any that you missed? Visit RainFocus On Demand to learn more.
