Unlocking the Real Power of AI in Hospitality

At HOSPACE this year, I had the pleasure of lifting the lid on one of Hospitality’s biggest buzzwords—and biggest sources of confusion: AI.

If you feel like AI is suddenly everywhere (washing machines included), you’re not alone. But beneath the hype, we’re entering a genuine generational shift—one that will fundamentally change how Hospitality teams operate, lead, and deliver guest experiences.

This blog is a breakdown of the key themes from my session, written to help Hospitality leaders benchmark where they are today, cut through the jargon, and understand what AI can really do for their people and operations.

We’re at the start of a generational change — not a gimmick cycle

Workforce management has evolved massively over the past 25 years—from paper rotas to cloud platforms to the first forecasting algorithms.

But until recently, AI has mostly meant data crunching:

• turning sales history into forecasts,
• generating dashboards,
• spotting trends.

Useful? Yes. Transformational? Not really. What’s changed—very recently—is the arrival of agentic AI.

This is the moment Hospitality shifts from reporting to real action.

Agentic AI Is the breakthrough Hospitality has been waiting for

Traditional AI tells you what has happened. Agentic AI tells you what to do next.

Think of it like this:

Old AI: “Bookings are up 20%.”
Agentic AI: “Bookings are up 20% and two team members called in sick. I’ve drafted the extra shifts you’ll need for arrivals, departures, and public areas. Approve?”

It interprets real operational conditions—and acts on them using your business rules. It’s the difference between bolting sensors onto a 1985 Ford Escort and driving a Tesla that can self-navigate.

AI is finally unlocking insight about people — not just numbers

Forecasting has been driven by machine learning for years and it's become automated with features like auto-scheduling recently. People management - the repetitive, time consuming aspects of it - hasn’t.

Agentic AI now helps leaders spot patterns that even the best managers may miss:

• Why is an employee consistently late on Tuesday mornings?
• Which team members are quietly ready for promotion?
• Where is absence impacting guest sentiment?
• Which managers are cancelling shifts too close to the wire—damaging engagement and NPS?

This isn’t about replacing human leadership. It’s about giving managers superpowers.

AI gives time back to teams — so they can be with guests, not screens

Nobody gets into Hospitality to spend their life analysing rotas or combing through reports.

Your best GMs, chefs, and F&B leaders should be out front:

• welcoming guests,
• elevating the experience,
• coaching teams.

Agentic AI takes the heavy lifting out of the back office by turning noisy data into clear, timely prompts—so managers can make smarter decisions in seconds, not hours.

This is what modern workforce management should be.

Trust comes from transparency — managers need to see the “Why”

A major reason teams fall out of love with scheduling systems is simple:
if one thing looks wrong, trust evaporates.

Agentic AI solves this by showing managers how a forecast was generated:

• bookings
• weather
• events
• trends
• historical patterns

When managers understand the logic, they trust the output—and the whole system becomes more accurate, more stable, and more impactful.

Where should Hospitality businesses start with AI?

Based on what we’re seeing across the industry, these are the three best starting points:

1. HR & People Insight

Use AI to surface:

• rising stars,
• burnout risk,
• absence issues,
• fairness concerns,
• managers who may need support.

2. Back-of-house operations (especially F&B)

Move from reacting to being proactively guided:

• demand changes
• service pressure points
• guest-impacting risks
• labour imbalances

3. Identify the biggest pain point in your business—and start there

AI adoption is most successful when it solves one clear, high-value problem first, whether that's more accurate forecasting and shift deployment, people management, or supply optimisation.

Will AI replace people? Not in Hospitality.

Robots may run assembly lines in some industries. Hospitality? It’s still—and always will be—people first.

AI’s role is to remove the friction that prevents teams from doing what they do best: delighting guests.

Used well, AI won’t replace employees. It will elevate them.

Final thought

Hospitality has always been about human connection. But behind every great experience is a thousand tiny operational decisions made by managers every single day.

AI won’t take those decisions away, it will simply help teams make better decisions, faster, with less stress and more confidence.

If you're ready to explore what agentic AI can do for your operation, we’d love to continue the conversation.

Watch the full talk here: