How AI is transforming hotels today
Artificial intelligence has hovered on the edges of hospitality for years. Chatbots answered simple questions. Revenue tools nudged prices up or down. Automation handled a few routine tasks. Useful, but hardly transformative.
Now, everything changes.
The latest Matt Talks episode dives into why hotels are finally on the brink of true AI acceleration – and why the foundation you’ve built over the last decade will decide whether you’re ready. This article unpacks that conversation, focusing on what hoteliers, general managers, owners and IT leads need to understand as the next wave of AI reaches hotel operations.
It’s an energizing moment because the shift isn’t abstract. It’s operational, immediate, and tied to decisions hotel leaders are making right now.
Watch the Matt Talks episode:
From incremental change to real transformation
Hospitality’s AI tipping point is here, driven by a combination of maturing technology, accelerated innovation cycles and hotels that have already invested in cloud native architecture. As Matt says:
In the next few months, you'll see a real change happening to those hoteliers that have invested into their architecture, into a cloud first native platform like Mews, who’ll start to really see the benefits of those decisions that they made a couple of years ago.
The common thread behind the hotels that will benefit most is simple: they built the right foundation early. Those who are still relying on legacy systems, limited integrations or manual workflows will find it increasingly difficult to keep pace.
Turning complexity into efficiency
One theme that comes up repeatedly in conversations with hotel teams is the hidden complexity of daily workflows. Every front desk agent knows the checklist – a list of manual checks and tasks created simply because the system can’t handle them.
VIP arrivals. Fruit baskets. Baby cots. Birthday cakes. Room assignments. Guest preferences. Special requests. Housekeeping coordination. Maintenance tasks. And every time the phone rings, yet another workflow is added to the pile.
These processes matter because they reflect the fundamental limitation of traditional hotel tech: humans still act as the connective tissue between systems.
As Matt puts it: All of these notes are textual notes that are attached to reservations, and it means that a human has to get involved and navigate the complex landscape of systems that sit around the hotel to pass these tasks along to the correct departments.
This is what AI is finally capable of changing, through automation that understands context, connects systems through APIs, and triggers actions without manual routing.
When AI can interpret, route and complete these tasks on its own, the frontline experience changes. Staff make fewer clicks and more connections. Guests get faster, more consistent service. Operations become quieter, smoother and less reactive.
The importance of your tech architecture
To understand why AI adoption has been slow in hospitality, we can go back twelve years to the origin of Mews. Mews started with a simple question: why were hotels paying for systems that refused to share data?
Access to APIs was limited or expensive. Integrations were shallow. Guest profiles were scattered. Room based architectures restricted how data could flow. Reporting was often disconnected from operations.
That realization shaped three foundational decisions that still define the Mews ecosystem today:
- Rebuild the PMS in the cloud from day one
- Place the guest profile at the core of the data model
- Open APIs for developers
These decisions unlocked a modern tech stack long before the industry was talking seriously about AI. Now that hotels need real-time data and two-way connectivity for agentic AI tools, the importance of that architecture becomes clearer.
Legacy systems struggle because their data often sits in external lakes, disconnected from the core operations layer. AI can analyze it, but it can’t act on it. Hotels end up with insights but no automation.
Matt explains the impact: If you move all of that data into the core architecture – into the PMS – suddenly the PMS is the system that can also drive action because it sits on the data. It knows what's going to happen, as it is also the operational action system.
This is the difference between AI that answers questions and AI that runs workflows.
The different types of AI
The Matt Talks episode explores the evolution of AI technologies and how each stage has affected hospitality. To summarize:
- Automation: Simple rules – helpful but limited.
- Machine learning: Pattern recognition used mostly in revenue management.
- Generative AI: The rise of chatbots that understand language and create content.
- Agentic AI: The big breakthrough – systems that understand context, make decisions and act.
Agentic AI is the level at which hotels start to feel real transformation. If a guest requests more shower gel, the system can identify the room, open the housekeeping tool, create the task and message the guest – all without human involvement.
As hotels scale operations, this kind of automated action will become essential, not optional.
A new era of intelligent hospitality
Our industry is entering a moment of acceleration. Not because AI models suddenly got better, but because hotel tech stacks have finally reached a point where meaningful automation is possible.
Hotels that invested early in modern infrastructure will now move faster. Those still relying on outdated tools will feel the pressure to modernize.
But the opportunity is bigger than efficiency. It’s about giving staff space to create the moments that define hospitality. Data handled by machines, and experiences delivered by people.
That’s the promise of the next wave of AI in hospitality. To learn more about what agentic AI might look like in your hotel, check out the Agentic AI for Hotels report.
About Mews
Mews is the leading platform for the new era of hospitality. Powering over 12,500 customers across more than 85 countries, Mews Hospitality Cloud is designed to streamline operations for modern hoteliers, transform the guest experience and create more profitable businesses. Customers include BWH Hotels, Strawberry, The Social Hub and Airelles Collection. Mews was named Best PMS (2024, 2025) and listed among the Best Places to Work in Hotel Tech (2021, 2022, 2024, 2025) by Hotel Tech Report. Mews has raised $410 million from investors including Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Kinnevik and Tiger Global to transform hospitality.
