How citizenM Mastered Hospitality Automation with Mike Rawson (Formerly CIO of citizenM)

In this episode of Pillow Talk Sessions, Mike Rawson, former CIO of citizenM, joins host Jessica Gillingham to break down what most hotels are getting wrong about automation and how CitizenM built an NPS score good enough to catch Marriott's attention. 

After seven years as CIO of CitizenM, one of the most tech-forward hotel brands in the world, Mike’s biggest lesson is that technology comes last.

For citizenM, technology has never been the story on its own. Mike explains the real magic happens when people, process and technology work together – in that order. During his time with the brand, citizenM grew from 13 to 40 hotels, with tech acting not as an add-on, but as a deliberate enabler of better guest experiences, stronger operations and world-class NPS.

The conversation dives into:

• Why the speed of AI innovation is making decision-making so difficult for operators right now

• How most operators are currently stuck between paralysis and poor decisions

• The compliance, governance and control conversation nobody in hospitality is having — and why that's going to hurt

• How AI, done right, frees people for the moments that actually move NPS

• What Mike's ideal hotel would look like if he were starting from scratch in 2026

What made citizenM stand out was its ability to obsess over the guest journey without losing sight of the employee experience behind it. Its app could support the full stay journey, from booking and check-in to room control and checkout, while its internal tools helped ambassadors save time, automate routine tasks and stay focused on the moments that mattered. Some of the most powerful innovations were invisible to guests, such as automated room checks after checkout that tested the TV, iPad and lights, removed faulty rooms from service and raised tickets before the next guest arrived. The result was fewer broken experiences.

Mike is clear that AI and automation will reshape hospitality, but he is equally clear about what they should not replace. The opportunity is not to remove humans from the experience, but to give teams more space to create meaningful moments of connection. At citizenM, this meant understanding the “moments of truth”: arrival, checkout, a regular guest’s preferred drink, or even a small act of kindness on a bad day, and using technology to make those moments easier to recognise and act on.

AI, in Mike’s view, brings two major opportunities for hotels: personalization at scale for guests, and automation at scale for employees. The next step is hyper-personalization, where a hotel can recognise preferences such as room temperature, shade settings or coffee choices and bring them into the stay experience. But that recognition has to be handled carefully. Privacy, context and the ability to reset preferences all matter because personalization that gets it wrong can quickly become uncomfortable.

That is why Mike argues that hotels need to be much more intentional about where they automate and where they protect the human touch. A fully frictionless experience may work in a purely transactional setting, but hospitality brands need to decide where their value really lives. 

For citizenM, moments like arrival, checkout and ambassador interactions were not inefficiencies to eliminate, they were brand-defining opportunities to recognise guests, add value and create memories.

He also warns that the industry’s excitement around AI is running ahead of its governance. As more hotels experiment with agents, the questions around compliance, security, privacy, business logic and control become harder to ignore. Who owns the logic inside an agent? Who signs it off? What happens when rules change? For Mike, the answer lies in bringing AI governance back into plain English, with clear ownership, human oversight and business rules that hotel teams can understand, test and control.

Looking ahead, Mike sees AI becoming part of the operating system of hospitality to help hotels define their brand more sharply, automate the right tasks and elevate the moments where human interaction matters most. The future, as he sees it, is not about choosing between tech and people. It is about using technology to make the human side of hospitality more valuable, more intentional and more memorable

Meet the host of Pillow Talk Sessions

Jessica Gillingham is the Founder and CEO of Abode Worldwide, a strategic public relations agency dedicated to elevating the profile of transformative technology solutions in global hospitality, lodging, and rental living. An established industry thought leader, Jessica is a frequent conference speaker and author of Tech-Enabled Hospitality, a new book exploring the innovations shaping the sector.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear how Mike Rawson and citizenM are building a new model for hospitality — where sustainability, technology, and human experience are designed to work together, not compete.

Media Contact

Jessica Gillingham

Founder and CEO, Abode Worldwide [email protected]