Hotel staff are losing hours every day to routine tasks that should be automated—repeated guest questions, missed calls and manual coordination between systems that don't talk to each other.
Canary Technologies was built to fix that. Co-founder and president, SJ Sawhney shares how hospitality-specific AI is automating the work that drains teams, capturing revenue that's currently slipping through the cracks and freeing staff to do what actually defines great hospitality.
—The Mint Pillow team
This Q&A is sponsored by Canary Technologies
Hotel tech has never moved faster than it is right now. What are most operators still missing?
One of the most underestimated trends is the importance of hospitality-specific AI. As foundational models continue to improve, the real differentiator will be in how well AI is able to support specific use cases, teams and workflows unique to hotel operations.
Hospitality is highly nuanced. Every property has its own systems and processes that suit the context of that property; the brand, the operating rhythm, the guests. AI that’s built for hotels knows how to handle a check-in, coordinate with housekeeping, manage guest messaging and interact with a PMS seamlessly. AI alone doesn’t create value—applied AI inside real workflows does.
What many in the industry underestimate is how critical this verticalization is to actually unlocking value. The platforms that will win are the ones that translate AI capabilities into real operational leverage to truly transform the business.
Staff interruptions are constant in hotel operations. Which ones should hotels stop handling manually?
High-volume, repetitive tasks are the first to disappear—especially the ones teams handle dozens of times a day. The most common interruptions for staff are questions with known answers, like “What time is check-in?” “Do you have a pool?” AI takes these repetitive interactions off the staff's plate entirely.
Hoteliers realize this and are taking action. Surveying over 400 hoteliers, we learned that 71% already have AI Guest Messaging tools or plan to adopt them in the next year.
What’s really game-changing is that hospitality-specific AI is also able to take the next step.
That might mean confirming a late checkout or sending directions without any staff involvement. This is because AI solutions built for the industry understand the dynamics and workflows intimately and can anticipate the service needs proactively. Guests get what they need faster, and staff are free to handle more complex matters or in-person service.
Understaffed teams and disconnected systems are a daily reality for most independent hotels. What does that actually cost a property?
The challenges hotels face, such as labor constraints, rising guest expectations and fragmented systems, aren’t isolated—they’re compounding. When teams are stretched thin and systems aren’t integrated, simple tasks become distractions and guest service is compromised.
This is where hospitality-specific AI platforms make a meaningful difference. By understanding how hotel operations actually work, these systems automate high-volume tasks to create a more unified operation. This gives teams the leverage to keep up with demand, deliver better service and capture more revenue, all within the realities of how hotels operate today.
There's real anxiety in the industry about AI replacing hotel workers. What's the more honest conversation?
Hospitality will always be a people-centric business, and agentic AI will actually allow hospitality to become more human. The role of hotel teams won’t disappear—it will evolve toward delivering more personalized, relationship-driven service that defines great hospitality. AI enhances how well staff are able to show up for guests.
With access to real-time insights on individual guests, teams can personalize service based on preferences and past behaviors. That means a front desk agent isn’t just checking someone in—they’re anticipating the needs and requests of the guest in front of them. The result is a more informed, more empowered team that delivers a higher level of service without added complexity.
Operators want results, not a long implementation runway. Where is the impact showing up fastest?
In the near term, AI is driving immediate impact by automating high-volume touch points like guest messages, phone calls and bookings. For example, hotels miss up to 40% of inbound calls today—many of them reservation-related—so simply answering the call lets hotels better capture demand from callers.
Hoteliers are also starting to build custom agentic workflows tailored to their operations. Canary’s AI Agent Studio gives hotel teams templates and tools to design, build, test and deploy custom operations.
We’re seeing hotels build agents for specific teams, like concierge services and sales assistants, as well as workflows that connect teams and systems, like turning a question into an upsell that gets fulfilled in minutes.
