We have declared 2025 the Year of AI for RunSignup | TicketSignup | GiveSignup because it is the first year our customers will see material benefits from our use of AI. Fundamentally, we deliver two things to our customers – technology, training and advice to make their events better. AI will make us better for our customers.
Technology and Development
The most important thing we deliver is technology for events. Technology to help market and promote events, manage participants, fundraise and deliver memorable experiences. We have built the premier platform for the endurance market and are well on our way to doing the same for the ticket market. AI is bringing two dimensions of technology leverage for GiveSignup and our customers:
- More Software, Faster. AI is now mature enough so we can develop software with the help of AI that we can deliver more software, faster. We have begun using tools that are having a significant impact on our productivity – on the order of at least 10-20%. And that will increase over the next two years.
- Customers Can Develop. AI allows our customers to access and use their data in GiveSignup to develop their own dashboards, applications and customer engagement mechanisms using AI tools. We have one example blog on developing and deploying an AI based application using the GiveSignup API already, but we will be releasing a whole series of example applications for customers to have a roadmap to follow. AI is making software development accessible to a very wide audience.
The AI tools are getting better very, very quickly. It was only 2 years ago that ChatGPT came out, and V4.5 and the whole new Reasoning “o” series has been released since then. And Anthropic, Meta, DeepSeek, Baidu and others are moving at warp speed adding new layers of reasoning, verification and enrichment.
AI software development tools (sometimes referred to as AI Agents because they address specific problem domains) like the v0 tool we used to show customers how to develop and deploy a sample application to list and search all races on RunSignup | GiveSignup in only 1 hour are also improving rapidly.
Lex Fridman hosted a recent (5 hour!) podcast. His guests, Dylan Patel and Nathan Lambert make a strong case that the pace of improvement in AI is going to continue growing very, very rapidly. At the 4 hour and 40 minute mark they talk about how AI based software development will actually improve and mature fastest since, like math, software is a more verifiable domain. So the AI tools will learn from themselves better, just like with math. Human developers will still be needed for any system of complexity to check and correct the code as well as make the connection to real customer needs – but productivity will increase rapidly over the next 2 years. https://lexfridman.com/deepseek-dylan-patel-nathan-lambert
GiveSignup has a jump on training our AI development tools we use internally. Verification is the key. We already have in place a number of mechanisms to verify the code the AI writes. For example, we have already put together an extensive set of “Rules” we feed the AI that are a combination of specific instructions to the AI, internal documentation on our coding standards, and all of our Design System for all of our UX components. Also, we have done 100%, multi-step code review for the past decade. This make our code more consistent and easier for the AI to understand. In addition, AI written code is reviewed by the individual developer using the AI, and then goes thru the normal code review process. This catches issues, but more importantly helps the AI learn how to write code in our system better and better.
For customers using AI to write code leveraging the GiveSignup API and data, that will also get better and better. We have several projects happening right now that will make our API easier for the AI tools to understand our system and write productive, secure code that customers can easily deploy and manage.
Content Drives Understanding and Efficiency
AI loves content. AI Chatbots and Agents will make content easier to access and use. Like technology, this will help our customers in two major ways:
- GiveSignup Help and Tutor. We have released our first AI Chatbot on our RunSignup | GiveSignup Support page. We are seeing very good early adoption of this new tool (which we label as Beta AI). Over time this tool will get better at answering questions, and eventually be viewed by some customers as a tutor of how to improve their events with GiveSignup technology. And our thousands of webpages, blogs and help articles, along with 1,600 videos will help the AI be valuable tutors.
- Event Chatbots. Like our own chatbot, we are seeing early adoption of chatbots by our event customers. They are reporting much lower customer service requests and high levels of satisfaction. It is important to note that events have to post their own content. The GiveSignup Website technology can help with this, since events can post unlimited data on their website. We also suggest including content from GiveSignup’s support website – copying and pasting “How To” information and videos. The additional content will help the AI Chatbots understand your policies better. We have seen some nice adoption of Queu.ai by a number of our customers.
Efficiency
AI is helping our development team deliver more software. Our support and account management teams will be partially offloaded by customers preferring to interact with the AI Chatbots over time. This translates to lower growth of our employee count, along with higher output. This combination means we will be able to continue to bring our customers better software and support and keep our costs low. A win for everyone.
Summary
AI is here. It will have a profound impact on the business of GiveSignup and all of our customers. We are embracing this change and will be leaders in adopting this advance in our business and trying to enable our customers.