HB on the Scene: Balancing efficiency and the human touch

Artificial intelligence (AI) was center stage at the Destination AI Hospitality Summit at the National Housing Center in Washington, DC, as an attentive audience of hospitality and tech leaders heard and offered the latest insights into the technology that is transforming the industry.
The session, “Conversational AI in Hospitality: Converting Guest Chats, Texts & Calls,” focused on a question at the heart of the industry’s future: How far can conversational AI go in handling guest chats, texts,and calls without losing the personal touch that defines hospitality?
During the session, moderated by Cara Whitehill, operating partner, Thayer Investment Partners, and featuring Blaire McCoy, cofounder/chief revenue officer, Traversing.ai; Aman Shahi, VP, product, Canary Technologies; Chris Smith, CEO/cofounder, Kipsu; and Carrie Spooner, SVP, revenue optimization and CRM, Rio Hotel & Casino, the panelists agreed that the rise of AI isn’t just about replacing call centers or handling simple requests—it’s about finding the right balance.
Smith cautioned against adopting AI simply because it’s available. Instead, he argued, hotels need to align their use with broader business goals. “Before you develop your AI strategy, start with your business strategy,” he said. “Michael Porter talked about either reducing costs below the industry or charging a premium. How you apply AI should correlate with one of those models. For us, guest satisfaction is the key metric—using technology to improve that is where the real impact lies.”
For many hotels, the first win comes from addressing missed or abandoned calls—something that McCoy has seen firsthand. Her company recently partnered with the Rio, where unanswered calls were a persistent issue.
“Abandonment rate was the number one problem we needed to solve, and we quickly took it down to zero,” she said. “Today, more than 80% of calls are resolved without human involvement, freeing up staff for higher-value tasks and opening new opportunities to measure and capture ancillary revenue.”
Rio’s Spooner recalled the surprise at just how many calls weren’t being answered. “We were shocked at how high our abandonment rate was,” she said. “A lot of those calls weren’t revenue generating—they were transactional, like billing inquiries or folio requests. Once AI handled those, we could focus on things like offer redemption and guest reviews, which drive profitability in the casino hotel business.”
While reducing call abandonment helps with guest satisfaction, Shahi emphasized the direct revenue implications. “About 30% of calls to a front desk aren’t being picked up, and a third of those are booking-related,” he said. “That means one in 10 attempts to give you money goes nowhere. With AI answering 100% of calls, you’re now capturing revenue that would have been lost.”
AI’s ability to consistently follow business rules also gives hotels an edge, Shahi added, noting, “Humans sometimes miss steps, but AI can automate actions reliably and at scale.”
Technology can only go so far if guests and staff don’t trust it. In Las Vegas, Spooner said, trust has to be earned. “Our AI assistant, ‘Rio Rita,’ had to build confidence with both customers and staff,” she said. “Guests still want that host relationship at the higher end, but they also expect immediate gratification—like getting towels quickly. Training people to trust the AI was key.”
Shahi pointed out that skepticism often comes from years of bad experiences with automated phone systems. “The first reaction when people realize they’re speaking with AI is often, ‘I want a human,’” he said. “The challenge is to make the AI sound more natural and approachable, so it gets the chance to actually help.”
Smith added that hotels also need safeguards to avoid errors. “Large language models aren’t yet great at expressing confidence levels,” he said. “That makes it hard to know when to automate versus escalate. And of course, brands are worried about hallucinations affecting reputation.”
For AI to deliver on its promise, panelists agreed that hotel staff need training and involvement. “We have to train teams on how AI is meant to be used,” McCoy said. “By monitoring calls in real time and sharing data with leadership, we can continually improve and build confidence internally and externally.”
Spooner said a strong quality assurance process has helped her team get comfortable. “Over the past six months since launch, our sentiment scores are at 95%,” she said. “Tracking every call and involving staff in reviewing them has been critical to building trust.”
Ultimately, panelists emphasized that AI should serve as a complement, not a substitute, for hospitality professionals. “AI doesn’t do everything a human can, and it never will,” Shahi said. “But it can triage queries and get urgent issues straight to a person. The goal isn’t to get to 0% human interaction—it’s to let AI handle the routine so staff can focus on high-value service.”
Smith agreed, noting that the essence of hospitality lies in relationships. “When conversations evolve beyond transactions, that’s where human connection matters,” he said. “The new currency is relationships—refreshing and energizing them with our guests. That’s the secret sauce we need to preserve.”
Looking to the future, panelists saw opportunities in both technology and consumer behavior. Shahi noted that improvements in latency and voice quality will make AI interactions feel more natural, while McCoy pointed to a shift in how guests seek information.
“People aren’t saying ‘Google it’ anymore—they’re saying ‘I’ll ask ChatGPT,’” McCoy said. “For hotels, the opportunity is to become the trusted source of personalized, connected trip experiences. If we know you want four towels or a Diet Coke in your room before arrival, that’s what hospitality will mean in the AI era.”
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Source: hotelbusiness.com