How Some of the Major Hotel Companies Stack Up for AI

Artificial intelligence software app company Noodle.ai has ranked a number of major hotel companies on AI adoption versus stock value. "There are really three things you need to do AI well," said Noodle.ai CEO Stephen Pratt. "One is an understanding of AI analytics. The second is around Big Data. Third is around supercomputing technology."

To figure out where each organization fell on its index, Noodle.ai looked at the skill sets of company executives and others within the organizations, as well as things like public statements about, say, a focus on advanced analytics.

Pratt said companies in the top right corner have really figured out how to make AI enhance their overall business. "If you look at Expedia, it's a very much analytics driven company," he said. "It it's all about the data and how can we use the data to serve our customers better and to run our company better." Choice Hotels International, too, has leveraged back-office technology in recent years with its SkyTouch property management system, and the company is redoing its data analytics platform, according CEO Patrick Pacious.

On Noodle.ai's chart, companies toward the right but below the diagonal dotted line "have the raw horsepower," Pratt said, but likely any AI initiatives are too new to show up in performance results or there are alignment issues within the company. Companies on the lower left corner of the chart, he said, are already behind.

"There are a lot of companies that are doing things that are more flashy like robots in the entryway of the lobby," Pratt said, "or some that are trying things that we think are really bad ideas like chatbots for their websites, which we think typically don't work and are really expensive." The real revolution, he said, is around internal operations. "What data are you using to make pricing decisions or to make inventory decisions or to make staffing decisions? Those are things that are really core to the business."

Pratt said the overall hotel industry is way behind the financial services industry in AI power but only slightly behind the airline industry. "One of the mistakes that hotels make is that they confuse Big Data with analytics," he said. "Big Data is simply just collecting a lot of data, and analytics is what you do with those data. You can actually do very sophisticated artificial intelligence on small data, but a lot of people would say, 'Well, let us finish our intergalactic master data management project before we start thinking about analytics,' and we think that's a mistake."

Launched in 2016, Noodle.ai provides enterprise AI for complex enterprises. Its software essentially supercharges existing revenue management systems with AI. Pratt said one of the company's major clients is charter jet company XOJet.