How AI Helps Identify Disengaged Employees During Events

Akshay Birje
• February 19, 2026

(8 min read)

One of the most obvious challenges that every organization has to deal with these days is employee disengagement during live events. At a large-scale event, a presenter or speaker can only focus on a few people at a time. So it can be difficult to understand whether or not the entire audience is paying attention or listening to what they’re saying. This is where AI makes a difference.

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How AI Helps Identify Disengaged Employees During Events

AI observes real-time behavior, sentiment, emotions, and interaction to identify disengaged employees. It helps you scan through thousands of attendees’ expressions and body language to give you data on how many are engaged or not during the live session. This data can be crucial in empowering organizers to tweak event content or delivery accordingly.  

Here is a detailed guide on how AI helps identify disengaged employees during events.

How Does AI Identify Disengaged Employees During Events?

How does AI identify disengaged employees during events

During an event, AI identifies patterns that humans miss, such as low engagement, minimal collaboration, fewer poll or survey responses, and so on. Based on these signals, AI assesses the engagement level of attendees.

AI can also track the tone of language employees use while communicating with others via video chat, breakout room, as well as in the feedback forms, which helps gauge the emotions of attendees during a live session.

AI senses the expressions of attendees in real-time and understands if they are bored with or involved in the session. 

In addition, AI captures the duration of an attendee’s interactions with the speaker, their level of interest, and the amount of time they spend paying attention, in a particular time period. 

Whether it is an in-person event or a virtual program, AI can monitor thousands of attendees at once, recognize their body language and facial expressions, and identify the disengaged attendees.

How Does AI Identify Disengaged Employees During an In-person Event and a Virtual Event?

 

In-person Event

Virtual Event

1

AI uses computer vision through cameras to recognize the emotions of employees

AI watches the attendees’ facial expressions and eye movements through the webcam and understands whether the employee was fully involved in the session or not

2

AI’s smart sensors and systems monitor where attendees are looking (e.g., looking at phones)

AI-powered tool tracks whether users are focused on the event window or switching tabs frequently

3

During in-person events, artificial intelligence identifies who asked questions, interacted with the speaker, and participated in group discussions

To track employee engagement at an online event, AI looks at chat activity, poll responses, Q&A participation, emoji reactions, hand raises, and networking table visits

How Do I Regain the Engagement of Attendees, Once AI Identifies the Disengaged Ones?

1. Encourage attendees to ask questions or share opinions on the presentation

This turns a one-way discourse into a two-way conversation. Attendees will immediately focus on the topic at hand and are more likely to stay involved until the end of the event.

2. Run a poll and encourage attendees to vote

This will awaken disengaged attendees into active ones. When a poll pops up, it requires a physical action, such as selecting one specific option. Polls compel attendees to vote in real-time, which makes them more likely to engage with the content actively.

3. Encourage attendees to share emojis in chat

It will re-engage attendees with the ongoing topic in no time. It’s a small action that goes a long way. Emojis also help “break the ice” and bring the disengaged employees back into the moment.

4. Include a short tea/coffee break

By including a short tea or coffee break, you can give attendees an opportunity to relax and refresh for a moment. During the break, attendees can chat with colleagues, engage in banter helping them return to the session with renewed interest.

5. Play captivating videos on the screen

A video’s visuals instantly grab the audience’s attention, heighten the excitement, and create a curious ambiance, helping employees feel more connected to the company’s message.

6. Notify them about networking opportunities

When attendees know that they have an opportunity to connect with people who have shared interests or can help them grow professionally, the event becomes personal. It also helps otherwise disengaged employees to become more proactive and network effectively with peers.

What are the Benefits of Using AI to Identify Disengaged Employees During an Event?

what are the benefits of using AI to identify disengaged employees during an event

The biggest advantage of AI is that it tracks everything while the event is live, whether it is a town hall, conference, learning and development (L&D), or any other type of event. Where you would have to bring in volunteers or staff to determine whether an attendee was paying attention throughout the session, AI eliminates that entirely.  

AI can identify during an ongoing session whether a speaker’s speech is engaging enough. If not, you can then encourage speakers to adjust their speech, take breaks, or share tales to capture the audience’s attention accordingly. 

AI tools (like Zenus AI or Affectiva) can also analyze attendees’ facial expressions and detect their engagement scores.

AI smartly observes the behaviour pattern of attendees in real-time. Suppose an attendee pays close attention for the first 10 minutes, but then ignores the speaker’s instructions and presentation, it can highlight this so you can take necessary steps to prevent this. 

AI understands these signals that humans may find difficult to sense, at the moment. This actually helps identify which part of the session was engaging for attendees. 

What AI Tools are Best to Use During Events to Identify Disengaged Employees?

what AI tools are best to use during the event to identify disengaged employees

1) Zenus AI 

Zenus develops AI-powered solutions for events, retail brands, and more. It uses smart cameras and ethical facial analysis to measure human sentiment, demographics, and impressions. Zenus is used in 20+ countries with brands such as PwC, Oracle, Keller Williams, Dell, Informa, IMEX, and more.

Top features of Zenus AI

  • Ethical Facial Analysis
  • Plug-and-Play Smart Sensors
  • Real-Time Sentiment & Engagement Metrics
  • Advanced Traffic & Dwell Time Analytics
  • Live Dashboard & API Integration

2) Enculture AI

Enculture is an employee sentiment analysis tool that decodes team emotions in real-time, helping leaders understand employees’ mood, morale, and potential risks. It analyzes text from multiple sources: pulse surveys, open-ended feedback, and more. Their AI sensors detect emotional tone, identify themes, track sentiment trends over time, and alert leaders to significant shifts.

Top features of Enculture AI

  • AI-Powered Sentiment & Culture Intelligence
  • Predictive Cultural Analytics
  • Real-Time Pulse Check-ins
  • Automated Reporting

3) Affectiva

Affectiva is a tool that uses emotion AI and behavior analysis to understand human emotion, facial expression, and vocal expressions. It uses computer vision and also detects gestures and body language of humans in real-time. This tool is specifically built for media and UX testing, but its AI capabilities can easily identify the disengaged employee during virtual events, meetings, training sessions, webinars, and more.

Top features of Affectiva

  • Real-Time Facial Expression Analysis
  • Industry-Leading Media Analytics
  • Automotive Interior Sensing
  • Multi-Modal Sensing (Face + Speech)
  • World’s Largest Emotion Database
  • Media Analytics for Ad Testing
  • Multi-Face Tracking

Final Thoughts

AI sensors immediately track whether employees lose interest during the event. It notices the pattern in attendees that you might miss while speaking or presenting. Because of AI, noticing disengaged employees during an event has actually become easier than ever. 

By using AI, you can detect disengagement patterns during a live program and accordingly change the employee engagement strategy. Leveraging AI’s ability to track large-scale employee data in real time is really important in today’s world to understand the true engagement of event attendees.

FAQ

  • AI notices micro-trends in attendee behavior that humans can’t see in real-time. 
  • AI also identifies employees’ emotions from their written interactions.
  • AI reviews the language attendees used in chat conversations and feedback forms.
  • AI sensors track how employees interact with others during an event.
  • While the speaker is speaking, AI detects whether the employees have lost interest or not.
  • No interaction with the speaker within the first 10-15 minutes
  • Not responding to polls 
  • Zero participation in Q&A
  • Ignoring completing surveys
  • Not participating group discussion
  • Leaving early before the session is over

It involves analyzing the emotional tone of attendees in chat feeds and Q&A sessions with the help of AI. This analysis measures whether the employee’s tone is positive, negative, or neutral.

AI can make mistakes in understanding attendees. “For example, a quiet employee might be very focused or taking detailed notes, but AI may consider them as unfocused or disengaged because they’re not asking anything, providing feedback, or looking at the camera. Also, low lighting in attendees’ homes may not track facial recognition and body language properly, which leads to inaccurate reports.

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