Conversations: Rodney Hart on Breaking INSIGHT Records and a Surprise AI-Powered Hit

With RainFocus INSIGHT 2025 wrapped up, it’s once again time for Rodney Hart, VP of events at RainFocus, to jump into a few of the most important post-event activities: Crunch the data to quantify the multifaceted impact of this annual flagship event, (maybe) finally catch up on sleep, and, of course, sit down and talk about his biggest victories, learnings, and new best practices to share with the industry.

Whether or not you joined us in Salt Lake City or online this year for INSIGHT, our discussion with Hart offered plenty of illuminating takeaways. You’ll also find some honest post-mortem pondering from the leader who planned and executed the INSIGHT program start to finish.

This year marked INSIGHT’s third year as an in-person event (with hybrid and virtual offerings). Intentional, targeted attendance growth was a big story. 

“Twenty-seven percent growth is exciting, but seeing 40 percent growth within key demographics for our customers and prospects is even more so,” Hart said. “We’ve built a reputation for a conference that people want to attend.” 

All about the content

Attendees packed into sessions in record numbers, too. RainFocus INSIGHT 2025 posted its highest total of concurrent sessions and highest session attendance numbers yet, with strong engagement and many popular presentations quickly attracting standing-room-only crowds. This enthusiasm reflected new heights in session quality and tracks tailored to INSIGHT’s varied attendee personas. For example, differentiated levels of session technicality accommodated attendees’ various roles and experience with the RainFocus platform. 

Hart said he and the team have already begun brainstorming areas for additional improvements next year based on survey data. Some attendees, for instance, found the repurposing of the large mainstage space for breakouts made even well-attended sessions feel awkwardly empty. Others wanted to see more rooms more extensively built out with additional equipment for speakers.

“We’re looking to mix around sessions and continue to refine session delivery,” he noted. Based on attendee comments, the team is also exploring ways to add more immersive experiential impact for the most anticipated mainstage sessions, such as the annual keynote from RainFocus executives JR Sherman and Doug Baird. 

A surprise breakout hit

One notable success from INSIGHT 2025 nearly didn’t happen: Hart said that the introduction of AI-powered session summaries from Voxo followed a last-minute rush to onboard the vendor and uncertainty over whether attendees would embrace the offering. 

“We made it happen,” he recalled. “We gave them the speakers and abstracts, and we produced 62 summaries and had more than 2,000 downloads very quickly. This nearly approached the number of people who scanned in for sessions. We also had 10 clients who wanted to do something similar and followed up with Voxo.”  

Human connections

As shown by the success of INSIGHT’s instant session summaries, generative AI continues to play an increasingly important role in events. The technologies also powered and enhanced numerous other processes at INSIGHT, from session recommendations to real-time transcription to rapid sentiment analysis for post-event feedback. Attendees’ conversations and session takeaways, including intriguing early victories for agentic AI, also highlighted the usefulness of practical applications. 

Nevertheless, the INSIGHT 2025 theme — Elevating Relationships — serves as a reminder that people attend events to interact with other people. Whether it’s industry titans, familiar longtime peers, or key clients and prospects central to their organization’s revenue goal achievement, human-to-human connections are paramount.

The future of virtual

Given that truth, how are virtual components faring in 2025 within hybrid events like INSIGHT? 

“Although we’ve seen lower numbers year-over-year, that really hasn’t diminished the value of virtual,” Hart said. “What it means is that you have to think about how to build and amplify that content you’re producing. ‘If you build it, they will come’ isn’t the case anymore.” 

He added that INSIGHT 2025 featured the longest virtual broadcast yet, with significantly elevated quality. As other industry observers have noted, virtual attendees may simply be less willing than in years past to sit and tune in for multiple sessions at an appointed time. Or, as Hart described, they’re “meeting’d out” and may instead prefer to register for the event and then plan on diving into on-demand sessions at their convenience. 

INSIGHT’s fully virtual components, such as Premiere and Preparation, have continued to draw high attendance. “This presents more ways of leveraging virtual as we look at the activity around Premiere and Preparation,” Hart explained. “Those are the ‘calendar moments’ where you get to talk to your audience.” 

Stay tuned for our continuing post-INSIGHT coverage! We’ve also added sessions for viewing on demand  – click here to check out any you missed or revisit your favorites.