How To Review 500 Session Submissions In Minutes with AI Evaluations

An Industry Bottleneck

Conference organizers are drowning in call for content submissions. With hundreds - even thousands—of proposals flooding in for each event, most teams struggle to keep up. Reviewers burn out, responses trickle in, quality feedback is impacted, and program decisions are rushed too late in the planning process.

The process is unsustainable. 

Many teams don’t even make it through the full list of submissions. Others shut down their call-for-papers early. For many, keeping evaluators on-task becomes its own full-time job.

Introducing First Ever AI Session Evaluation Assistant

Developed in response to direct customer feedback, Sessionboard AI Evaluator Assistants reduces the workload for event content teams, improves consistency, and helps ensure that every submission is evaluated fairly, with expert feedback, and in a timely manner. 

Key features include:

• Custom Reviewer Personas – AI reviewers can reflect your team’s tone, content criteria, and priorities.
• Instant Feedback & Scoring – Submissions are evaluated against your rubric in seconds, with concise summaries and scores.
• Real-Time Dashboards – Track top submissions, reviewer alignment, and evaluation progress in one central view.‍
• Quality Suggestions – Receive AI-generated insights to improve session titles, formats, or focus.

AI Evaluators Bring Their Own Expertise

Want your AI Evaluator to rate call for content submissions like a Product Marketer at HubSpot or an Academic Chair at MIT?

When we built AI Evaluations at Sessionboard, we knew we didn’t want a one-size-fits-all approach. Every evaluator brings their own lens, expertise, and values to the speaker review process—and your AI assistant should too.

That’s why we created custom reviewer personas: AI-powered virtual evaluators designed to review your sessions from a variety of perspectives. Each persona is tailored to reflect a specific role, audience type, or area of expertise—such as a technical expert, first-time attendee, or executive decision-maker.

By using these personas, you can gather comparative feedback that reflects diverse viewpoints, helping you assess content quality, relevance, and impact more thoroughly. This feature streamlines your evaluation process while providing deeper insights into how your sessions resonate across different audiences.

Step 1: Create A Persona

Each AI Evaluator is guided by a structured profile made up of the following components:

• Persona Name: Give your reviewer a clear identity.
• Title / Role: Helps ground the tone and mindset.
• Bio: Describe the evaluator's background, focus areas, and personality.
• Feedback Style: Is it constructive? Critical? Positive? Analytical?
• Likes: The qualities or themes this persona values in a session.
• Dislikes: The red flags they commonly watch out for.

Step 2: Create The Evaluation Plan

Once your persona is defined, give your AI clear scoring criteria. You can weight each category based on what matters most to your event.

Example Weights:

• Relevance to Audience: 40%
• Originality of Topic: 30%
• Speaker Authority: 20%
• Storytelling Potential: 10%

Bonus Tip: If you're evaluating technical sessions, you might want ot swap storytelling for clarity or practical depth.

Step 3: View Evaluation Results - In Minutes, Not Weeks

Let your AI personas review submissions with clarity and speed—digesting each proposal, comparing it to past content, and offering rationale-rich insights.

Each AI review includes:

• A detailed summary tailored to the persona’s tone and expertise
  
• A numeric score based on your custom rubric
  
• Justification of the score and notes on content fit, clarity, and speaker credentials

Early adopters of AI Evaluations reviewed over 250 session submissions in under 3 minutes.

AI doesn’t just evaluate - it explains. That means better decisions, better coaching, and stronger trust in the process.

The Future of Session Evaluation and Speaker Selection Is Here

AI Evaluations is not about replacing human reviewers - it’s about amplifying what makes your team great. With custom personas, your AI can reflect the same values, standards, and insights you bring to every programming decision.

Ready to create your own evaluator?

Get a demo of AI Evaluations in Sessionboard today.