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Perk launches new AI-powered Events solution to automate team event planning

4 MIN READ

  • Over half (52%) of UK employees who organise team events do so outside their core job responsibilities
  • Perk now automates venue sourcing, group booking and travel coordination for teams of up to 5,000 people, removing event-related hidden tasks it calls shadow work
  • As the first product to emerge from Perk’s Real Work Incubator, the Events module transforms one of the most manual workflows into an AI-powered, end-to-end experience
Boston and London, 14 January 2026 — Perk , the intelligent travel and spend management platform, today announces the launch of Perk Events , a new AI-powered module that automates every part of team event planning - from venue selection to travel, attendee management and communication.Perk’s study into event workflows found that 76% of UK employees have helped plan or coordinate a team offsite, retreat, or internal event at work, and over half (52%) of them took this on outside their core job responsibilities. The biggest pain points they reported were venue sourcing (43%), managing budgets and approvals (43%), and arranging hotel accommodation (37%).Additionally, research from Forrester Consulting , commissioned by Perk, shows that 53% of UK companies have event processes that are either minimally automated or not automated at all. As a result, employees spend countless hours managing events and group travel instead of focusing on the job they were hired to do. Perk calls this invisible workload shadow work, and it is contributing to $1.7 trillion in productivity lost annually to non-core tasks across six major markets, with UK businesses alone losing £95 billion.
“Events are a major source of shadow work, stealing hours teams should be spending being there, not getting there,” says Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo, Perk President and COO. “It became clear that if we wanted to fix the problem, we needed to remove the hidden tasks and complexity behind every team event. Perk Events does exactly that. By taking the work out of in-person moments, we’re giving teams the space to focus on what truly matters: building relationships, driving collaboration, and doing real work.”
Perk Events is the first product developed and implemented from Perk’s Real Work Incubator, transforming one of the most complex and manual workflows into an AI-powered, end-to-end experience. The incubator is a dedicated, startup-style environment for Perk employees to pitch and build innovative products that eliminate shadow work from critical workflows. Formally founded in 2024, the incubator provides teams with leadership support, time, and financial investment to bring ideas to market.Perk’s event solution automates the entire lifecycle, helping companies plan events from 9 to 5,000 people without the endless back-and-forth. It brings together centralised event management and booking, AI-powered venue matching with upfront pricing to help stay within budget, automated group travel coordination, attendee event pages with customisable admin controls to share key information, manage attendee RSVPs, and track details such as dietary requirements, and reporting tools - all supported by Perk’s team of human experts for more complex needs. By consolidating scattered workflows into one platform, Perk Events gives organisers visibility, control, and significant time savings.As Storyblok , a content management system (CMS), grew its team, it began organising larger in-person retreats to bring their globally distributed workforce together. These early retreats were among the first to benefit from Perk Events, introducing the structure, clarity, and centralisation that Perk had already brought to their travel program.
“Perk Events makes my life way easier. Now, whenever someone asks a question, I just direct them to the platform — everything is there.” Daniela Merizaldem, Marketing Commercial & Workplace Specialist, Storyblok.
The launch marks the latest milestone in the company’s mission to eliminate shadow work and power real work across the workplace, strengthening its platform at a moment when the events category presents one of the largest untapped opportunities for workflow automation and AI.
MethodologyThis press release references two separate studies. The first is independent research conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Perk in September 2025, based on surveys of 721 decision-makers and 8,004 employees across six countries, supported by a cost-of-shadow-work model using salary benchmarks. Additional statistics come from a separate OnePoll study commissioned by Perk, which surveyed 7,000 business travelers across five countries in August 2025. Together, these studies provide a comprehensive view of both the scale of shadow work and the specific challenges employees face when planning and coordinating work events.About PerkPerk (formerly TravelPerk) is the intelligent platform for travel and spend management, built to eliminate the hidden, manual tasks that drain productivity and morale - Perk calls these ‘Shadow Work’. By automating travel bookings, expenses and invoice processing, the platform gives teams back time to focus on real work, with real impact. Trusted by more than 10,000 companies worldwide - including Wise, On Running, Breitling and Fabletics  - Perk is tackling the 7 hours of lost productivity per employee each week, a $1.7 trillion problem revealed in The Cost of Shadow Work report. Founded in 2015, the global company combines innovation, control, and simplicity to transform how businesses work today and in the future. Perk’s mission is to power real work by removing the invisible tasks that slow teams down.Visit www.perk.com for more information.