In early Summer 2021, it appeared that in-person conferences would soon be back in full swing. While some conferences are still forging ahead, such as the Consumer Technology Association in-person mega-event, CES, many others, such as Twilio, Box, Okta, and Zendesk, have decided to retain their virtual models.

As we enter year two of virtual conferences, companies often still ask how they can run a virtual conference? The answer is often Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

When COVID-19 hit, Amazon was in the midst of planning its 9th annual AWS re:Invent conference, which, to that point, was always in-person. The event previously brought together thousands of people for training sessions, keynotes, follow up-breakout meetings, and other networking opportunities. All of a sudden, Amazon was faced with the challenge of migrating the event online.

Unsurprisingly, Amazon figured it out. They hosted 650 educational sessions, 20 leadership talks, and five keynotes. More impressively, they hosted an online audience of more than 300,000 attendees. 

When asked about this year’s upcoming 10th annual re:Invent conference, Rachel Thornton, vice president of global marketing at AWS, said, “The key is in building a cohesive customer journey online, which we were able to deliver with Adobe Experience Cloud. It allowed us to reach more customers globally while enhancing the overall experience that in-person attendees could have at virtual and, in the future, hybrid events.”

Others have taken Amazon’s lead. Virtual and hybrid event platform company, 6Connex, was one of the first virtual event providers to integrate AWS’s technology into their platform. This technology allows 6Connex to offer multiple services such as matchmaking, content recommendations, agenda planning, and many other personalization features. 

When asked about AWS, Henry Tran, 6Connex’s chief technology officer, said, “By leveraging the machine learning aspect of Amazon Personalize, we can improve the recommendations and matchmaking capabilities over time to optimize an attendee’s experience...When you’re attending an event virtually, it’s much easier to get distracted by texts and emails. Our new AI offerings help to ensure participants are fully engaged and receive a personalized experience.”

Virtual conference set-up is just one of the ways AWS has helped companies during the pandemic. If you believe your company could benefit from AWS, give us a call.