Your imagination is the limit with AI

Hoteliers were advised to see AI as an assistant, but not a replacement for their expertise, on a webinar hosted by HOSPA and Hotality IT Solutions, AI & Copilot - transforming your hotel - practical AI for every department.

Mike Juszczak, operations manager, Hotality IT Solutions, said: “AI is all around us and, on a day-to-day basis it integrates into our daily lives like a well-trained assistant. It’s a tool that can analyse your data much more quickly, but that also needs your constant input. The more time you spend with you, the better it will be. You will guide it and discover ways that it will shorten tasks. That’s the point of having an assistant; you can focus on the things that are more important to you.

“For hotels, it’s important to remember that customers have been exposed to AI for some time, with chat agents, for example. This means that customers expect it; they expect an easy way for them to get what they need.”

Turning to teams Juszczak advised hotels to use the enterprise version of Copilot, where data stayed on the hotel’s computer rather than going into the cloud. He added: “Hotel teams can benefit from AI, if it is done in a structured and secure way. For example, don’t share any personal information, but do use check in and out times, general guest preferences; you wouldn’t put a card number into Google, so the same rules apply. It’s very easy to get excited and do these things, but this is somebody’s data.

"What AI can do on a basic level is create drafts, it can find information and very quickly and organise data. Once you have it in your 365 environment it can go through your files, your emails looking for a specific project and that’s a great time saver.

“If you work on front desk, how many times are you asked what’s fun to do around here, where’s good to eat? These questions are repeated over and over again, but AI can structure a response in seconds. Then you can tweak it if you want - it’s important to always review it. Across a day that can save hours. In reservations, if you have a complex group booking table, it can analyse it very easily.

The only limit is your imagination. If you have a handwritten recipe or menu, snap a picture, upload it, transcribe it. That saves quite a lot of time. You might have a menu draft and you’d like tips on how to write it. If you don’t have a sommelier, it can advise you on wine pairings. You might have Google’d that, but this is much quicker.

“Start small. Think of one task you find tedious and give AI a try, you might find it’s better. The main thing is to be specific with your prompts; if you are too general you won’t see good results. There is a prompt coach within CoPilot. Asking AI how to ask the question sounds funny, but it’s the best way to do it.

“In terms of measuring the impact, the first thing you will see are time savings, then quality improvement. You might see your guest communications becoming more consistent and less time spent on admin. The final factor is team satisfaction.”

Juszczak concluded: “You start the work, it helps you along the way and by using AI you are freed to spend more time with the guest. The human contact remains and that’s still extremely important.”