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What is agentic AI?
To understand the change, let us first define the force driving it: agentic AI.
Unlike traditional AI (which analyses data) or even generative AI (which creates content in response to a prompt), agentic AI systems are designed with autonomy and purpose. Think of it as the AI moving from being a fast calculator or a clever writer to being a proactive, goal-oriented employee.
An AI agent operates by:
- Setting a goal: For instance, “Ensure Guest A has a perfect, personalised stay.”
- Planning: Breaking the goal into steps (check preferences, monitor in-stay feedback, suggest upsells).
- Executing actions: Taking real-world action across different software systems (PMS, CRM, Booking Engine) with minimal human oversight.
- Learning: Reflecting on the outcome to improve future actions.
This agency and independent task execution by AI agents is the key differentiator for simplifying the increasingly complex guest journey in the era of AI-driven hospitality.
Agentic AI and the guest journey
Agentic AI adds significant value by seamlessly optimising the guest journey with a greater degree of personalisation and proactive problem solving. For guests and staff alike, agentic AI acts as an invisible butler, ensuring every need is met before it even becomes a frustration.
- Pre-stay personalisation: An AI agent can analyse a guest’s booking history, loyalty status, and previous conversational data. Then it can proactively upgrade a loyal guest, schedule a preferred amenity (like a specific pillow), and send a perfectly timed, personalised check-in link—all without a staff member lifting a finger.
- Seamless in-stay service: A guest may message, “I need more towels and a dinner reservation for four at 9 PM.” An AI agent can instantly communicate the towel request to the housekeeping system, confirm it, and simultaneously check the availability and book the dinner reservation in the F&B management system. It doesn’t just reply; it executes across systems.
- Operational optimisation: Behind the scenes, agents can be utilised to manage housekeeping schedules based on real-time check-out predictions, adjust staffing levels in restaurants based on dynamic demand forecasting, and even trigger preventative maintenance alerts for in-room IoT devices. This frees up human staff to focus solely on empathetic, high-touch interactions.
What are AI search engines?
AI search engines are another major force impacting digital hospitality. They have fundamentally transformed the way travellers find and book hotels, restaurants, and other destinations.
Traditional search engines provided a list of links (organic and paid), requiring the user to click, browse, and compare. AI search engines—like those using sophisticated generative models—provide a direct, synthesised answer and often include a dynamic, transactional booking component right on the search results page.
- From links to answers: A traveller searches, “Plan a 3-day family trip to Rome in November with a budget of $500/night.” The AI search engine doesn’t return 10 hotel links; it returns a full, actionable itinerary that includes a specific, available hotel suggestion, flight estimates, and activity options, all pre-vetted against the user’s constraints.
- Zero-click conversions: The goal is to facilitate a “zero-click” booking flow, where the user moves from query to conversion on the search results page or via a conversational interface, bypassing many traditional websites entirely. For hoteliers, this means the battle for direct bookings is moving to the surface layer of the search engine itself.
Recent development in the era of agentic AI
API integration is king
Cloud-native solutions are adopting open APIs as the standard, allowing AI agents to easily “talk” to PMS, RMS, and CRS systems. Without this infrastructure, autonomous action is impossible.
Hyper-personalisation as the standard
The rise of the orchestrator
How hoteliers can adapt to agentic AI and search engines to maximise bookings
Hoteliers must view this era not as a threat, but as an opportunity to reclaim the direct guest relationship from intermediaries. Adaptation requires a strategic shift:
Become AI-ready with cloud-native infrastructure
It is important to unify data as agentic AI is useless with siloed data. Ensure your cloud-native PMS and CRM are integrated to provide a single, clean source of truth. To make sure your systems are ready to be commanded by an AI agent, choose tech vendors who prioritise open APIs and actively facilitate agent integration.
Optimise for conversational search (and schema markup)
To rank well in an AI search engine, your website content (rates, availability, amenities) must be in a structured, machine-readable format (e.g., Schema.org). This is how AI search engines pull accurate answers and booking details directly.
It is also key to focus on long-tail queries. Instead of optimising for “London hotel”, you can optimise for more specific questions the AI will answer. For example, “What is the best vegan-friendly hotel in London with an afternoon tea service?”
Deploy autonomous agents strategically
It is good to start with revenue. Implement an agentic Revenue Management System (RMS) that autonomously adjusts pricing and promotions based on real-time market signals to maximise RevPAR.
It is also important to empower the staff. Introduce internal AI agents to automate back-office tasks like invoice processing, inventory ordering, and staff shift planning. This frees staff to deliver the high-empathy service that drives loyalty.
Looking for AI-ready and futureproof hospitality tech? Contact us today
The future of hospitality is autonomous, intelligent and personal
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Author
Reeves Mathews
Vice President - Global Customer Success
Reeves heads our global customer success operations, managing a team of over 100 professionals, with a mission to ensure top customer satisfaction and loyalty. He is responsible for customer engagement, technical support and key account management.
