Booking agents have one of the most relationship-dependent jobs in the music industry. They match artists with opportunities, negotiate deals, and manage the logistics of touring — all based on deep personal knowledge of artists, venues, promoters, and markets. So when AI companies started pitching tools that claimed to automate parts of this process, the reaction from most agents I know was scepticism.

Fair enough. But after spending time with several of these tools and talking to agents who’ve tried them, I think there’s a more nuanced picture emerging.

What’s genuinely useful

Route optimisation. Planning an efficient touring route across Australia’s vast geography is a genuine logistical challenge. AI-powered routing tools that factor in driving times, venue availability, market demand, and day-of-week preferences can produce optimised routes that save time and fuel costs. For an agent managing multiple tours simultaneously, this is a practical time-saver.

The better tools also factor in rest days, which matters for artist wellbeing and driver safety. A human agent might push through a tight routing schedule because it makes financial sense; an AI tool that’s been configured with safety parameters will flag when the schedule becomes unsafe.

Market demand analysis. As I’ve discussed in previous articles, tools that aggregate streaming data, social media engagement, and historical ticket sales to estimate demand in specific markets are improving rapidly. For booking agents, this data helps identify which cities to include on a tour, what venue size to target, and where marketing investment will have the most impact.

The Team400 team has been building custom market analysis tools specifically for the Australian music industry, incorporating local market knowledge that generic international tools miss — things like school holiday patterns, competing events, and venue-specific demand curves.

Contract and rider management. AI tools that help manage the administrative burden of touring — tracking contract terms, rider requirements, technical specifications, and settlement details across multiple dates — are quietly useful. They don’t make the creative decisions, but they reduce the administrative load that eats into an agent’s time for relationship management and deal-making.

What’s not working yet

Automated deal negotiation. No AI tool I’ve seen can effectively negotiate a venue deal. Negotiation is a human skill that depends on relationship context, reading the other party, and making creative trade-offs that algorithms don’t handle well. The tools that claim to suggest optimal deal terms based on market data are interesting as reference points but miss the nuance of real negotiations.

Artist matching. Tools that claim to match artists with appropriate venues or festivals based on genre, audience demographics, and performance history are still too blunt to be useful. The best booking is as much about vibe, timing, and cultural fit as it is about data, and those qualitative factors are hard to quantify.

Replacement for industry relationships. The fundamental value of a good booking agent is their network — the promoters who trust their recommendations, the venue bookers who take their calls, the managers who share honest information about their artists’ plans. No tool replaces this, and agents who rely too heavily on data-driven decision-making risk losing the human connections that make the business work.

The practical approach

The agents I know who are getting the most value from AI tools are using them to handle the time-consuming analytical and administrative tasks, freeing up more time for the human work of relationship-building, deal-making, and artist development.

They’re not asking AI to replace their judgment. They’re asking it to give their judgment better inputs. “Show me the demand data for this artist in Perth” is a useful question for an AI tool. “Should I book this artist at this festival?” is not.

The workforce question

There’s a legitimate concern in the agent community about whether AI tools will reduce the number of booking agents the industry needs. My view is that the tools change what agents spend their time on, but the need for human agents isn’t going away.

What might change is the minimum viable size of an agency. If AI tools handle routing, market analysis, and administration more efficiently, a solo agent or small team can manage more artists than before. This could be good for artists who currently can’t access quality representation because they’re not generating enough revenue to justify an agent’s time.

The booking business will always be a people business. AI makes the people in it more efficient, but it doesn’t make them unnecessary. The agents who embrace the tools while maintaining their human skills will be the ones who thrive.