AI HOST at IMEX America 2026

The challenge: give people a reason to start a conversation

On a busy trade show floor, attention is only the beginning. A visual can make someone stop. The harder part is giving them a reason to participate, and something worth remembering afterward.

For AI HOST, our starting point was the interaction itself. What could a visitor do immediately, without a detailed explanation? How could the experience feel relevant to people with different interests, backgrounds and languages? And how could we show the potential of AI for live events through an actual encounter?

We built the experience around four recognizable invitations: Ask. Play. Smile. Discover. Each character offered a clear entry point, and one underlying format supported four very different experiences.

What is AI HOST?

AI HOST is NewMedia's interactive AI character experience for live events and AI brand activations. It combines a digital personality with conversational AI, so visitors can speak with a character and receive responses generated during the interaction. The character's role gives the exchange direction; the visitor's input shapes what happens next.

At IMEX America, AI HOST took the form of four characters with distinct purposes and conversational styles. Together they showed how a digital character can become an active part of a physical event: explaining, entertaining, asking questions and responding to the person in front of it.

Personal from the first word to the last

Every conversation started with the visitor's name. Before the interaction began, visitors entered their name, so the character could speak to them directly. That small step turned a demo into a personal encounter: the character was talking to a specific person, not to a crowd.

The personal experience did not end at the stand. When a conversation finished, AI HOST generated a QR code. Visitors scanned it with their phone and took the whole interaction with them, every question and every answer, on a page of their own.

What this demonstrates for brands: an activation can be personal at both ends. Addressing each visitor by name opens the conversation, and a takeaway they can keep carries the brand experience beyond the booth and beyond the show.

Four characters, four ways to engage

NewMedia Guru: meet the studio through conversation

NewMedia Guru was the knowledgeable guide to our company and the world of events. Visitors could ask about NewMedia, explore our work and discuss the creative possibilities of technology in live experiences, following their own questions and interests.

This character connected the activation directly to the business behind it. For a prospective client, an engaging character is compelling; one that can also explain who you are and what you do opens a more useful conversation.

What this demonstrates for brands: an AI host can be designed around company information and a defined subject area, helping visitors explore an offering through their own questions.

The Quiz Master: your subject, your difficulty

The Quiz Master turned conversation into a challenge. Visitors chose the topic of their quiz and the level of difficulty, so the participant helped define both what they wanted to play and how demanding it should be. Someone could ask for an easy introduction to a favorite subject or pick a harder challenge.

What this demonstrates for brands: conversational AI can support participatory experiences in which people influence the content and the level of challenge, creating possibilities for product education, learning and entertainment.

The Compliment Machine: a character designed to brighten your day

The Compliment Machine brought warmth to the experience. An endearing female character, she engaged visitors through conversation and compliments, offering a cheerful moment in the middle of a demanding exhibition day. Her purpose was straightforward: make someone feel good.

Where NewMedia Guru informed and The Quiz Master challenged, she focused on the emotional quality of the encounter.

What this demonstrates for brands: the personality and tone of an AI character can be as central as the information it provides. Humor, encouragement and warmth can become part of the creative brief.

The Oracle: a playful conversation about your future

The Oracle invited visitors into a more mysterious exchange. Attendees could ask about their future and enjoy imaginative predictions, including playful guesses about their zodiac sign. The predictions were part of the entertainment, and the character's theatrical premise encouraged curiosity and a willingness to play along.

What this demonstrates for brands: AI characters can inhabit a creative world, supporting themed experiences, narrative environments and entertainment built around a recognizable persona.

Real-time interaction was the heart of the experience

AI HOST was built around live exchange, and the interaction happened entirely in real time. Visitors spoke, the character responded, and follow-up questions could take the conversation in a new direction. A visitor could choose a quiz topic, change the difficulty, ask an unexpected question or approach a character in their own conversational style, and the character had to respond within its role.

For NewMedia, this is where conversational AI becomes an experiential medium. The creative work includes defining who the character is, why someone would approach it and what kind of exchange makes the encounter meaningful.

Multilingual AI interaction, with room for personality

IMEX brings together an international audience, so language was central. AI HOST engaged visitors in English and 25 other languages, including interactions with slang, dialects, regional expressions and country-specific accents. Attendees could bring their own vocabulary, tone and sense of humor into the exchange.

The creative significance goes beyond translation. A conversation carries personality through phrasing, rhythm, references and local expressions. Letting those elements into the interaction showed a more flexible form of audience participation, and a practical example of how multilingual conversational AI can become part of an installation's visitor experience at international trade shows.

Accessible by design: sign languages for deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors

AI HOST goes beyond spoken language. It also generates sign languages, so deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors could follow the conversation as well. For an international trade show audience, that makes the invitation to start a conversation open to more people, whatever language they speak or sign.

Accessibility is part of how an AI experience earns its audience. A character that adapts to the way each person communicates is a stronger brand ambassador than one that only works for a single kind of visitor.

AI HOST is one example of NewMedia's broader capability in custom AI experiences for events, trade shows and brand activations across the USA.

AI HOST by the numbers

These figures come from the AI HOST system's own records during IMEX America 2026:

• 402 conversations over four days: 28 on Smart Monday and 374 across the three show days, October 13–15.
• 12.2 hours of live conversation, with a median visit of 1 minute 36 seconds and a longest conversation of 9 minutes 8 seconds (20 exchanges).
• 1,171 exchanges between visitors and characters, an average of 3.6 per visitor who engaged in conversation.
• 25 languages besides English, with 127 conversations held in a language other than English. Visitors switched the character into their own language mid-conversation; after English, the most frequent were Spanish, Chinese, French and Portuguese.
• 2,635 welcome phrases called out to passersby in the aisle, 3.4 hours of audio inviting visitors to stop and talk.
• 99% of visitor exchanges were spoken aloud rather than typed.
• 2.6 seconds median response time from the visitor's last word to the character's voice, with 9 out of 10 responses under 3.4 seconds.
• 99.7% of turns answered without error, with 4,103 safety checks on visitor phrases and character responses. Four internet drops were covered by an offline voice.

From greeting to real conversation

Of the 402 visitors greeted by a character, 329 (82%) replied. 174 went on to hold three or more exchanges, 77 held five or more, and 15 held ten or more. AI HOST also gave visitors something to take away: 352 conversations were offered as a personal page reachable by QR code.

The conversations were also a source of real business context: 42 visitors described an event they were actually planning.

Which character did visitors choose?

• NewMedia Guru: 126 conversations (31%).
• The Compliment Machine: 113 conversations (28%).
• The Quiz Master: 91 conversations (23%). It held visitors the longest, with a median of 1 minute 58 seconds and 5.2 exchanges per visitor who engaged.
• The Oracle: 72 conversations (18%).

The audience response

The strongest feedback our team received centered on surprise. Visitors described AI HOST as incredible and unlike anything they had seen before, reacting to characters that could answer them in the moment, across different languages and conversational styles.

Beyond the usage data above, this feedback is qualitative and comes from the live presentation, not from a formal audience study. It does capture what the launch set out to explore: whether an AI character could create an immediate sense of curiosity and personal involvement on a trade show floor.

AI HOST gave people a direct way to experience what conversational AI can bring to a live event.

Why this matters for AI brand activations

An AI brand activation needs a clear relationship between the technology, the audience and the brand. At IMEX America, the four characters showed four ways to build it:

• Knowledge: help visitors explore a company or subject through questions.
• Participation: let people influence the activity through their choices.
• Emotion: create an encounter around warmth, humor or encouragement.
• Story: give the interaction a fictional role and a world to inhabit.

These are creative decisions. The AI makes the exchange responsive, but the concept gives people a reason to engage. The same format can serve different intentions while keeping one simple visitor action: start a conversation.

For brands and agencies, that raises a useful question: what would your audience want to say to a character created for your brand, and what should that character give them in return?

See how NewMedia applies AI to other live-event formats: MetaHuman Choir, an interactive installation with four digital humans at IMEX Frankfurt 2026, and The TO Pressure Test, a custom AI experience for Destination Toronto at ASAE 2026.

From trade show demonstration to a brand-specific experience

The IMEX launch presented four NewMedia personalities. A brand application would start from its own audience, objectives and creative brief. Potential directions:

• Trade shows and exhibitions: a conversational character that introduces a company, explains an offering or opens a topic before the team joins the discussion.
• Experiential marketing and brand activations: a brand-specific personality at the center of a participatory installation.
• Conferences and corporate events: quiz formats and themed characters for entertainment or learning built around the event's content.
• Museums and cultural experiences: a conversational route into a story or subject.
• Destination experiences: a host that introduces a destination's stories and culture to an international audience.

These are potential applications of the format. Each requires its own content, interaction design, technical assessment and production scope.

What the launch taught us about designing AI experiences

1. Give each character a clear purpose. A visitor could understand the invitation before deciding what to say.
2. Let the participant make a meaningful choice. Choosing a character, a quiz subject or a difficulty level gave people a role in the encounter.
3. Make it personal, then let people keep it. Addressing visitors by name and giving them their conversation to take home extended the experience beyond the stand.
4. Design the personality as carefully as the capability. The value of the exchange depended on how the character spoke and the role it played.
5. Build around the live setting. Audience flow, sound, language, visibility and technical operation all belong in the development conversation.
6. Demonstrate the experience through real interactions. Footage of actual exchanges shows the relationship between visitor input and character response.

Frequently asked questions

What is an AI brand activation?

An AI brand activation is a physical or digital brand experience in which artificial intelligence helps shape the participant's interaction. In AI HOST, conversational AI enabled digital characters to respond to visitors during a live event.

What did NewMedia present at IMEX America 2026?

NewMedia presented AI HOST, an interactive installation featuring four conversational characters: NewMedia Guru, The Quiz Master, The Compliment Machine and The Oracle.

How many conversations did AI HOST have at IMEX America 2026?

AI HOST held 402 conversations with visitors over four days: 28 on Smart Monday and 374 across the three show days, October 13–15, 2026.

Did AI HOST interact in real time?

Yes. The experience generated conversational responses during the interaction, so visitors' questions and choices influenced the exchange. The median response time, from the visitor's last word to the character's voice, was 2.6 seconds.

Was the experience personalized?

Yes. Visitors entered their name before the conversation started, and the character spoke to them personally throughout the exchange.

Could visitors keep their conversation?

Yes. When a conversation ended, AI HOST generated a QR code. Scanning it with a phone gave the visitor the whole interaction to take away, with every question and every answer.

Could visitors interact in different languages?

Yes. At IMEX America 2026, AI HOST held conversations in English and 25 other languages, including slang, dialects, regional expressions and accents. Visitors could switch the character into their own language in the middle of a conversation. Language requirements for a future activation are defined and tested as part of the project.

Does AI HOST work with sign language?

Yes. In addition to spoken languages, AI HOST generates sign languages, so deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors can follow the conversation too. The sign languages needed for a future activation are defined and tested as part of the project.

What made the four characters different?

Each had a distinct role. NewMedia Guru discussed the company and the events industry. The Quiz Master offered quizzes on the visitor's chosen subject and difficulty. The Compliment Machine provided a warm, uplifting exchange. The Oracle offered playful predictions as entertainment.

Can this type of experience be developed for a brand?

Yes. A brand-specific version can be explored around the audience, subject matter, character personality and intended visitor experience. Capabilities and production requirements are defined during development.

Can AI HOST be considered for events in the United States?

Yes. Contact NewMedia to discuss an AI brand activation for a U.S. trade show, corporate event or experiential campaign. Availability, technical requirements, content and delivery scope are assessed for each project.

Project credits

Production: NewMedia Creative Technology Studio
Event: IMEX America 2026
Venue: Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Dates: October 13–15, 2026 (plus Smart Monday)
Experience: Interactive AI characters with real-time conversation
Characters: NewMedia Guru, The Quiz Master, The Compliment Machine, The Oracle
Key capabilities: Personalized by visitor name, QR takeaway of the full conversation, multilingual interaction (English plus 25 languages), sign languages, slang, dialects and accents; distinct character personalities; conversations responsive to visitor input
Application: AI brand activation, trade show engagement, experiential marketing

Create a conversation around your brand

For your brand, the starting point could be a knowledgeable guide, a playful challenger, a memorable fictional character or an entirely new idea.

Planning an AI brand activation in the United States? Tell NewMedia about your event, audience, location and the interaction you want to create, and we will explore a character and experience built around your brief.

Contact NewMedia Creative Technology Studio: america@newmedia.events