Gradual allows you to create and manage community events directly through an AI assistant using Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Instead of manually configuring every event detail in your Gradual Dashboard, you can describe what you want to create or update in natural language. Your AI assistant can help you manage event information, speakers, agendas, registration settings, announcements, and more.

This guide explains how to use an AI assistant to manage events in Gradual.

To manage events using an AI assistant, you need:

If MCP has not been enabled for your community, contact the Gradual Support team.

To connect your AI assistant, follow ⁠Connect Your AI Assistant to Gradual Using MCP.

Once connected, you can start managing events by entering instructions directly into your AI assistant.

Note: Your AI assistant follows the same event management permissions as your Gradual account. You can only create or manage events in communities and clubs where you have the required access.

You can use your AI assistant to create different types of events, including:

Events can be configured as:

Example prompt:

Your AI assistant creates the event as a draft.

You can review the event in your Gradual Dashboard before publishing it.

Important: Always provide the correct time zone when creating or updating an event. Your AI assistant uses the time zone you specify rather than assuming one.

You can ask your AI assistant to find existing events and review their details.

Example prompts:

Your AI assistant retrieves the matching events.

You can also request information about a specific event.

Example prompt:

Show me the details of the event “Community Growth Strategies,” including its date, time, speakers, agenda, and publication status.

This helps you review existing events before making changes.

You can use your AI assistant to update event information after an event has been created.

Supported updates include:

Example prompt:

Your AI assistant updates the event details.

For in-person or hybrid events, you can update location information.

Example prompt:

You can also ask your AI assistant to update who can access an event.

Example prompt:

Update the event “Leadership Roundtable” so that it is available to members of the “Community Leaders” space.

You can also update whether an event is unlisted and whether the attendee list is visible.

You can use your AI assistant to add or remove speakers from an event.

Speakers must already exist in Gradual before they can be assigned to an event.

Example prompt:

Add Jane Smith and Alex Chen as speakers for the event “Community Growth Strategies.”

Your AI assistant updates the event’s speaker list using the existing speaker profiles.

Example prompt:

Remove Alex Chen from the speaker list for “Community Growth Strategies.”

Important: Removing a speaker from an event also removes that speaker from the event’s agenda sessions and topics.

Review the event agenda after removing speakers to confirm that the remaining speaker assignments are correct.

You can use your AI assistant to build and update an event agenda.

Each agenda item can include:

Example prompt:

Your AI assistant adds the session to the event agenda.

Example prompt:

Example prompt:

Remove the session “Closing Discussion” from the agenda for “Community Growth Strategies.”

Review the updated agenda in your Gradual Dashboard.

Tracks help organize sessions within larger events, such as conferences with multiple topics or parallel sessions.

For events with tracks enabled, you can create, update, and delete tracks using your AI assistant.

Example prompt:

You can then organize agenda sessions into the appropriate tracks.

Example prompt:

Assign the session “Building an Engaged Community” to the “Member Engagement” track.

Note: Tracks must be enabled for the event before agenda sessions can be assigned to tracks or stages.

You can use your AI assistant to manage event registration settings.

Supported settings include:

Example prompt:

Set the registration capacity for “Community Growth Strategies” to 100 attendees.

Example prompt:

You can also manage ticket options.

Example prompt:

Example prompt:

Enable the waitlist for “Community Growth Strategies” when the event reaches capacity.

After updating registration settings, review the event’s registration page in your Gradual Dashboard.

You can use your AI assistant to review and manage waitlist requests.

Example prompt:

Show me the pending waitlist requests for “Community Growth Strategies.”

Your AI assistant retrieves the pending requests.

Example prompt:

Approving a waitlist request registers the attendee for the event and sends a confirmation email.

Example prompt:

Decline the waitlist request for [Attendee Name] for “Community Growth Strategies.”

Important: Waitlist approval sends a confirmation email to the attendee. Review the request before approving it.

You can use your AI assistant to configure event-related email settings.

These include:

Example prompt:

You can also update the event’s sender email settings.

Example prompt:

Update the sender email settings for “Community Growth Strategies” to use our community’s event communication address.

Review the email settings in your Gradual Dashboard before publishing the event.

You can use your AI assistant to create announcements for an event.

Announcements can be used to communicate important information to attendees.

Example prompt:

Your AI assistant creates the announcement for the selected audience.

Important: Announcements sent by email notify the selected recipients. Review the message and audience before sending.

Events are created as drafts.

Once an event is ready, you can use your AI assistant to publish it.

Example prompt:

Publish the event “Community Growth Strategies.”

Publishing an event triggers notifications to community members.

Important: Before publishing, review the event details, agenda, speakers, registration settings, and access settings.

You can also ask your AI assistant to unpublish an event.

Example prompt:

Unpublish the event “Community Growth Strategies.”

Your AI assistant updates the event’s publication status.

You can use your AI assistant to create a new event based on an existing one.

This is useful for recurring events, workshops, and event series.

When copying an event, you can specify:

Example prompt:

Your AI assistant creates a new event based on the original event.

Review the copied event before publishing it.

You can use your AI assistant to find attendees and review registration information for an event.

You can search by attendee name or apply filters such as:

Example prompt:

Find the registration information for Jane Smith in the event “Community Growth Strategies.”

Example prompt:

Show me attendees registered with VIP tickets for “Community Leadership Summit.”

You can also use attendee searches to review registration or check-in status.

Note: Event check-in operations are not supported through MCP.

You can register a member for an event, change their attendee type and cancel a registration. The assistant can do what you could do on the Attendees tab of the event dashboard, and nothing you could not.

Give the member and the ticket type, and optionally the attendee type (for example Speaker or Host). The registration appears on the Attendees tab with the registration source Admin Created.

Adding an attendee this way does not send anything: no confirmation email and no calendar invite. Send the confirmation separately when you want the member to have it.

"Register Jane Smith for 'Community Growth Strategies' with the General Admission ticket, as a Speaker."

If the member is already registered, the assistant tells you so and does not create a second registration. If the ticket type is sold out, the registration is refused, as it would be on the dashboard. If the member is on the event's waitlist, approve them from the waitlist instead — see Manage the Event Waitlist.

If the person is not a member of your community yet, the assistant can create the member first, with their email, name, company and job title. The new member is approved, of the Standard member type, and is not sent a welcome email.

Members are found by their full email address; a fragment such as a domain name will not match. If your community requires a profile field, or has a sign-up rule such as a blocked domain, the assistant tells you what is missing or which rule is in the way, and creates nothing until you resolve it or confirm you want to continue anyway — the same choice the dashboard offers.

If a member with that email already exists, the assistant returns the existing member and changes nothing about them, including their member type and approval status.

"Create a member for Priya Raman, Head of Community at Northwind, then register her for 'Community Growth Strategies'."

The assistant can update a member's profile fields and upload a profile photo. The photo appears on the member's dashboard profile and on their active event registrations. Only the fields you name are changed, and a field your community requires cannot be emptied.

"Update Priya Raman's job title to VP of Community."

You can send an attendee their confirmation email again. It goes only to the attendee's own address.

"Resend the confirmation for Jane Smith for 'Community Growth Strategies'."

"Change Jane Smith to a Host for 'Community Growth Strategies'."

Cancelling moves the registration to the Cancelled tab with the cancellation source admin-cancelled, and returns the ticket to the available count. If the attendee holds a role in the event room, such as a speaker or host, remove the role on the dashboard first.

"Cancel Jane Smith's registration for 'Community Growth Strategies'."

You can use your AI assistant to update search engine information for an event.

Supported SEO information includes:

Example prompt:

Your AI assistant updates the event’s SEO settings.

You can use your AI assistant to delete events that are no longer needed.

Example prompt:

Delete the event “Old Community Meetup.”

Deleted events are archived and removed from the active event list.

Important: Confirm that you have selected the correct event before deleting it.

The following example demonstrates how to create a hybrid event using an AI assistant.

Add Jane Smith and Alex Chen as speakers for “Community Leadership Summit.”

Enable event tracks for “Community Leadership Summit.”

Create two tracks:

Then add agenda sessions to the appropriate tracks.

Set the event capacity to 150 attendees.

Enable the waitlist when registration reaches capacity.

Enable RSVP confirmation emails and event reminder emails for “Community Leadership Summit.”

Open the event in your Gradual Dashboard and review its details, speakers, agenda, registration settings, and access settings.

Publish “Community Leadership Summit.”

The event is now published, and the publication action triggers member notifications.

When managing events with an AI assistant: