Latest / The Modern Hotelier / #334: Building an AI Workforce For Hotels | with Jonathan Lei
Transcript
- The Modern Hotelier #334: Building an AI Workforce For Hotels | with Jonathan Lei === David Millili: Welcome to a special Independent Hotel Show Miami episode of The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Please make sure to follow, like, subscribe and let us know in the comments what you think about today's episode. Please introduce yourself to the audience. Jonathan Lei: Hey, I'm Jonathan Lei, co-founder and CEO of withQ. And what we do is that we build AI workforce that help with guest communications and backend workflows. David Millili: Okay. So to get started, so when you started withQ, what was the problem that you saw in hospitality that you were trying to solve? Jonathan Lei: You know, David, the first thing I saw when I got into hospitality is how great the people is, right? They're passionate about serving the guests, helping them, going around local areas, and making sure they're happy on their vacation. But the problem is there's not enough people that you can hire because of the labor shortage. And the second thing is that there's so many softwares that they're using, and people in hospitality don't wanna be system administrators. They want to be in front of the guests. So that's why we're building AI employees that learn with the hotel and that don't need as much training over time, and there's no turnover. David Millili: When you talk about AI coordinating operations, what are some of the examples of task or workflow that withQ handles today? Jonathan Lei: David, we see this very holistically in terms of tasks from guest communications all the way to backend workflows. So when we first started, we're doing voice calls. When guests call in, we answer questions, and gradually we got to room booking. When someone call in wanting a room for this much for their family vacation or special anniversary, like birthday, we find the best packages for them according to the date, find activities, and do the whole itinerary for them. And gradually we move to text, SMS, email, and at the end, with all the data we have, we start automating backend workflow like data syncing, reporting, procurement, and predictive intelligence in general, so. David Millili: Having learned from hotels and resorts actually using AI, what surprised you the most? Jonathan Lei: You know, the first thing is that I think the consumer behavior with AI has changed a little bit in terms of opinion. So when we first started two years ago, we have analytics on around 60 to 70% of people detect as AI. And, because of technology and also consumer behavior, we're seeing that percentage go down to 15 to 30%. And within that 15 to 30%, half the people don't really care if there's AI or not anymore. As long as they can help, AI can help finish their task, booking, or resolve their questions, they don't really care. The second part is that how GM's use this product. After the pilot, around a month, and after, they don't really look at the call metrics anymore. What they tell us is that how much time it has saved their team and themself in terms of looking at operations and the inefficiencies, and they have more time in front of the guests and helping them. David Millili: What will hotel operations look like in three to five years from now as AI agents become part of how teams work? Jonathan Lei: So in our opinion, our vision is that hospitality and the people at the hotels or the businesses are the best of the best. Steve Carran: Right. Jonathan Lei: They are trained to help the people and be five-star concierges, no matter if it's a motel or a five-star hotel. And the middleman in terms of coordination is gone. So the brain of the hotel in terms of how to manually sync stuff, how to measure your operational inefficiencies, those are all gone. And we think that management companies will adopt this model as well. So a team of 10 people, instead of they can manage one hotel, they can manage multiple, five or 10, right? So that's where we're seeing the industry is going. David Millili: Okay. What can the AI not do yet, and what happens then? Jonathan Lei: Oh, trust me, there's a lot of things that AI can't do yet. If there are people telling you AI can do anything, I'd be very suspicious. So there are things like obvious people getting pissed off, and they ask for a manager or human, right? We don't stop them from doing that, right? Those are some of the high-value ticket items that only the GMs or the front desk people should handle, right? If someone's pissed off, they want a refund, we don't have the authority to do that. I mean, if we do, then great. Right. There are other things like event booking or wedding blocks, group bookings. Those are very high-ticket value items as well. The hotels and the hospitality businesses usually have a dedicated sales team. They're the best of the best, so we leave that to them. David Millili: So you touched on it a little bit, but what do you think most hoteliers get wrong when they look at trying to incorporate AI? Jonathan Lei: I think there are two things that they don't take in consider. First is training with their staff, There is a little bit of onboarding time with the staff using it, and also the AI adjusting to the hotel's operations, right? When an AI go online for the first time, you are thinking about like a new employee learning things, so you can't expect it to be 100% perfect. And we set the expectations for the hotels and the hospitality businesses we work with, and making sure that they know a month from now, two months from now, the AI will be way, way better than when it first got deployed. The second thing is that, in terms of automation and also hallucination wise, it's not gonna be 100%. There's always gonna be fallbacks in terms of when AI messes up. And how to come up with that mechanism is what we customize with each individual hotel and the owners we talk to, right? And there's no one solution that fits all. David Millili: So what advice would you give to someone who's looking to start a company in hospitality, whether it be AI or some other sort of solution? Jonathan Lei: Right. Good question. You know, we started this business two and a half years ago. There's been a lot of learnings. I think in general, building your reputation, your connections in the industry is very, very important. It's really easy to start a software business or AI business nowadays, right? You can just like vibe code using AI to code something very, very quickly. It's hard to establish those relationships at trade shows, making sure your clients are happy, they're referring you organically, and that's what we build our business on. Like 60%, 70% of our clients are all from referrals from our existing happy clients. So yeah. David Millili: Well, that's great. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This is where you get to let people know how they can find out more about withQ and how they can get in touch with you. Jonathan Lei: Sounds great. So withQ, you can go to withq.ai. And to get in touch, my name's Jonathan, so my email is jonathan@withq.ai. Thank you. David Millili: Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. So whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to be with you again soon. Thank you, Jonathan. Jonathan Lei: Thank you, David.