Meeting professionals are entering the new year feeling optimistic, though concerned about rising costs and what formats will resonate with a wide range of attendees.

The 2026 Global Meetings & Events Forecast, released in November by American Express Global Business Travel, is based on a survey of 601 meeting professionals in eight countries. Overall, the outlook is positive: 85 percent of respondents said they felt optimistic about the coming year, in part because “the meetings sector is stabilizing after half a decade of unpredictability and change.”

But making the numbers work and engaging attendees weigh heavily on those professionals’ minds. Thirty-eight percent of respondents cited cost as a potential challenge, with 32 percent citing “economic uncertainty.” In addition, 31 percent said “designing events that meet the needs of today’s attendees” was a concern. 

According to the report, designing meetings that successfully engage multiple generations has grown more complex. The report says many planners are shifting “from the sprint-style and marathon-style sessions that were once so popular. Sessions are shorter, allowing for longer networking breaks. Increasingly, attendees want events where they can be active participants and create human connections.”

To that point, 42 percent of meeting professionals said attendees want more interactive opportunities, such as workshops, than they did five years ago. Forty percent say attendees want more social and networking opportunities.

That means meeting professionals have to do more than work on venue selection, F&B, and speakers. A third of respondents (33 percent) said one of their 2026 goals is to “improve attendee experience with more memorable events,” and 31 percent cited “improve processes for collection of data at the event” as a goal.

Assigning more routine tasks to AI is now a part of the meeting planner’s conventional toolkit. According to the report: “Half plan to use generative AI for tasks such as agenda building, communications, or virtual assistants/chatbots for attendees and planners in 2026. Four in ten (40%) will use AI-powered event apps with personalized agendas and smart networking suggestions.”

The robust optimism among planners is tempered somewhat when the focus is on North American professionals. According to a similar survey exclusively of that group released last month by the Professional Conventional Management Association, nearly half (49 percent) said they were both worried and excited about the future.

The more tempered attitude may be due to the fact that “domestic event professionals have been more negatively impacted by all the changes over the last year brought on by the current administration—from federal budget cuts to rising prices due to tariffs to DEI and climate change backlash,” wrote Convene editor in chief Michelle Russell in a report on the research.

Gregg Lapin, CMP, Director, Event Experience, at the American College of Healthcare Executives summarized the shift by saying he is “Optimistic because the demand for meaningful, in-person connections continues to grow and cautious because of economic pressures, rising costs, and shifting attendee expectations.”

Another challenge for North American meeting planners in 2026, according to the AmEx report, is an unusually busy year for big non-conference events. “2026 will be a big year for events in North America which meeting professionals will need to work around and plan for,” the report says. “This includes the FIFA World Cup across the US, Mexico, and Canada, the celebrations for the US’s 250th birthday and Taylor Swift’s wedding.”