Perk launches new AI-powered events solution to automate team event planning

Will help 52% of UK employees organising team events outside core job responsibilities

Corporate travel and spend management platform, Perk, has launched Perk Events, a new AI-powered module that automates every part of team event planning - from venue selection to travel, attendee management and communication.

The firm conducted a study into event workflows and found that 76% of UK employees have helped plan or coordinate a team offsite, retreat, or internal event at work, and over half (52%) of them took this on outside their core job responsibilities. 

More importantly, the biggest pain points that came out of it were reportedly venue sourcing (43%), managing budgets and approvals (43%), and arranging hotel accommodation (37%).

Research from Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Perk, also showed that 53% of UK companies have event processes that are either minimally automated or not automated at all, causing employees to spend hours managing events and group travel instead of focusing on the job they were hired to do. 

Perk calls this the "invisible workload" shadow work, contributing to $1.7 trillion in productivity lost annually to non-core tasks across six major markets, with UK businesses alone losing £95 billion.

Perk Events is the first product developed and implemented from Perk’s Real Work Incubator - a startup-style environment for Perk employees to pitch and build innovative products that eliminate shadow work from critical workflows - said to "transform one of the most complex and manual workflows into an AI-powered, end-to-end experience". 

Perk’s event solution automates the entire lifecycle and brings together centralised event management and booking, AI-powered venue matching with upfront pricing to help stay within budget, automated group travel coordination, attendee event pages with customisable admin controls to share key information, manage attendee RSVPs, and track details such as dietary requirements, and reporting tools.

“Events are a major source of shadow work, stealing hours teams should be spending being there, not getting there,” says Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo, Perk president and COO. 

“It became clear that if we wanted to fix the problem, we needed to remove the hidden tasks and complexity behind every team event. Perk Events does exactly that. 

"By taking the work out of in-person moments, we’re giving teams the space to focus on what truly matters: building relationships, driving collaboration, and doing real work.”

“Perk Events makes my life way easier. Now, whenever someone asks a question, I just direct them to the platform — everything is there," said Daniela Merizaldem, marketing commercial & workplace specialist of Storyblok (a Perk customer).