ChatGPT has been making headlines, with everyone from the United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt to Wrexham Football Club owner and Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds using it to generate text in a style of their own.
The words you are reading here have been created organically, but with education boards around the world lining up to ban the software, it must surely be onto something. And, importantly, it marks the latest move by AI into the mainstream.
And about time. According to Accenture, AI has the potential to double annual economic growth rates and boost labor productivity by up to 40% in developed countries by 2035.
This can only be to the good for the hotel sector, which has been suffering from a brain drain exacerbated by the pandemic but a feature for many years before that.
The sector is sold to its potential team members as a fun place to enjoy delivering great service, bringing smiles to faces and providing an opportunity to see the world.
The reality, as many who find themselves manning a desk at 3 a.m. have discovered, is heavy on the paperwork and light on memorable experiences. Checking and verifying paperwork is key to operations but not high on thrills. It is also hard to do correctly when under the pressure of multiple check-ins or tasks — or at 3 a.m.
AI can provide a more accurate service, which means that the load is lifted, and lifted in such a way as to cut costly mistakes.
ChatGPT and the chatbot are also stepping up to take the strain when it comes to communications.
One of ChatGPT’s more high-profile tricks is its ability to mimic anyone, something singer-songwriter Nick Cave called “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.” But in intelligent hands, ChatGPT could answer many of the questions that the average front desk has to field, such as about check-out times, pillow choices and food orders.
All of this can be ancillary hotel revenue.
It doesn’t matter how many little flags team members have on their badges. They cannot hope to speak all the languages that come through the door. Using a chatbot that can work in all languages can help put guests at ease and encourage them to interact.
This can build valuable relationships that lead to repeat visits and positive reviews — that is, real-life loyalty.
The luxury segment has been resistant to using guest-facing AI. It was less resistant to the dynamic pricing algorithms, which helped to maximize room rates as we came out of the pandemic. But the sector is warming to the IT of late.
There were concerns over maintaining brand standards when using a medium that is informal and that leaned heavily on chatbots.
But as we have seen with ChatGPT, it is now possible to enjoy the benefits of a tailored approach that adheres to hotel brand standards, which big brands will insist on as surely as they set out where to put the peas and beans on a plate.
Now that interactions can be more conversational, important relationships can be built.
One hotel technology provider reports that even in the luxury sector, bots are now able to respond to more than 15% of messages where the confidence level is more than 99%.
The relationship can, in some hotels, be even more intimate.
In the Park Hyatt New York, the hotel is offering AI-powered beds, which, it says, allows guests to “fight off jet lag, fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep longer, as the bed dynamically adjusts to relieve pressure points and control the climate throughout various sleep stages.”
Guests can store their sleep preferences and tap into their personal bed profiles whenever they return.
What feels a little gimmicky is not so easily dismissed when you look at the rise of AI-aided wellness and how much of this is being demanded in the luxury sector. It doesn’t seem so very long ago that we were remarking on how many of us are able to carry tiny computers in our pockets. Now we see those computers recording more and more data about health and well-being and, as a result, helping users improve their lives.
The past few years have taught us all the importance of looking after our physical and mental health, and the rise of leisure-driven mergers and acquisitions in the sector is testament to this. State-of-the-art spa facilities now mean much more than the latest hot stones.
Personalization is the current watchword of the sector. Using AI and machine-learning to form the knowledge hoteliers have on guests create something usable and meaningful.
This works not just for wellness, but across every interaction with guests.
As with everything that involved computers, there has been a phase where it was the stuff of Ph.D.-level experts, then the phase where we worried it would start the next war, then the phase where we joked about robots bleeping up and down corridors and then the phase where we realized that we were already using it and it was working out just great.
As friends, family and consumers, we are already using chatbots and personal assistants to help us run our lives even during the most average of days.
Hotel guests demand the same experience before, during and after their stays, and the hotelier that fails to realize this will not only be missing out on efficiencies but on delivering that which we all aspire to — exceptional service.
Alex Sogno is CEO of business advisory Global Asset Solutions.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.