In this episode, Steven Moore, CEO of Actabl, and Joseph Benjamin, Actabl's Chief Technology Officer, share a practical approach to using AI in hotel operations as leaders prepare for budget season. They explain why reliable operational AI depends on trusted data, how it can give hotel teams more time with guests, and how leaders can move from scattered experiments to a coherent architecture without creating new security and cost problems.

Watch the webinar:

• Access the original on-demand Actabl webinar and see the presentation slides

Explore Actabl AI:

• Actabl AI: Hotel AI That Works
• AI Insights: From Labor Data to Labor Action
• Altitude: Answers About Hotel Performance From AI You Can Trust
• Actabl Data Services: The Data Foundation for Hotel AI

Actabl AI announcements:

• Actabl's AI Insights Cut Overtime Share of Hours by 13% Across 100-Plus Hotels
• Actabl Introduces Altitude
• Actabl Launches Forward-Deployed Engineering for the Hotel Industry
• Actabl Granted a U.S. Patent for Hotel Data Normalization
• Actabl Launches AI Asset Setup
• Actabl Hires a Global Hotel Engineering Leader as SVP of AI Asset Management

Related companies and episode:

• Steven and Joseph's earlier episode, How Hotel Companies Turn AI Into Competitive Advantage, on forward-deployed engineering

This episode is sponsored by Actabl

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
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If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Dan Kornick, Chief Information Officer at Loews Hotels, explains how they decide where AI can improve hotel work and guest service. Dan also discusses working with technology partners, measuring results, and testing whether the value justifies the cost.

Going to Destination AI? Hear Dan there: Destination AI Forum.

Read my related HotelOperations.com article: Most Hotel AI is Stuck in “Pilot Purgatory” But Loews Sees a Way Out.

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
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If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Alex Cabañas, founder and CEO of Astound Ventures and executive chairman of Pyramid Global Hospitality, shares how our industry can innovate to make hotels more profitable, working in hotels more rewarding, and stays in hotels more enjoyable.

Learn more:

• Astound Ventures: launch announcement, net unit margin approach & portfolio companies
• Operational examples: Base Power (home batteries) | Fox Fold (refillable paper) | Outmore (heated outdoor furniture) | Relivable (meeting and event workflows)
• Events: Destination AI Forum | Blueprint

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Sloan Dean introduces AI Hospitality Group and explains why he's building an AI-native hotel management company. He covers the pace, risks, and benefits of AI; the pressure on hotel owners; and how he's approaching recruiting, sales, and daily operations through hotel partnerships. Sloan also explains his profit-sharing management model and what he believes this approach could mean for hotel associates, owners, and guests.

Links:

• AI Hospitality Group
• Sloan’s newsletter: Services Are the New Software. Hotel Management To Be Heavily Disrupted.
• Sequoia Capital: Services: The New Software
• Emergence Capital: Why AI-Native Services, and Why Now
• Emergence Capital’s original 2024 essay: The Death of Deloitte
• Subscribe to Sloan’s NOT DONE newsletter
• Listen to NOT DONE with Sloan Dean
• Connect with Sloan on LinkedIn

Previous conversations with Sloan:

• AI for Hotels: MIT Lessons, Claude, Vibe Coding and Real Use Cases
• Not Done: Sloan Dean After Remington
• The Power Shift in Travel
• The Future of Hotel Management: Automation, AI, and Innovation

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, Cornell professor Chris Anderson shares why hotels cannot afford to treat AI as a "wait-and-see" issue. Drawing on research he conducted about how different traveler segments use AI, he explains why hotel discovery is becoming more contextual and why reviews and trusted third-party information matter. We also discuss what hoteliers can test now, why integrated technology will matter more, and how more specific guest requests could eventually change what hotels offer.

Chris Anderson will be speaking at Destination AI 2026. Learn more about the event here.

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

In this episode, hosted by our careers correspondent Emily Goldfischer, founder of hertelier, Charlotte Weatherall, General Manager of Corinthia London, shares what she has learned about building a career and leading as herself.

Charlotte explains how her sales and marketing background prepared her to become a GM, why trusting her team shapes the guest experience, and how she balances ambition with family life. She also shares what hospitality needs to change to support women’s progression and why kindness belongs in even the most difficult leadership conversations.

Read Emily’s original Hertelier article: Charlotte Weatherall, General Manager of Corinthia London, on Authentic Leadership and Why Kindness Wins.

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Jeff Wielgopolan, Service Director at Meadowood Napa Valley & The Napa Valley Reserve and former Senior Vice President of Learning & Development at Forbes Travel Guide, shares a recent experience with AI as a guest, and then what it's like providing service in a world where more and more people use AI as they travel.

Previous episodes with Jeff:

• The Energy of Excellence
• The Fundamentals of Service in Luxury Hospitality
• The Experience That Earned Us Michelin’s Three Key Distinction

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Jeff Wielgopolan, Service Director at Meadowood Napa Valley & The Napa Valley Reserve and former Senior Vice President of Learning & Development at Forbes Travel Guide, shares a few thoughts on how to train your teams for excellence. 

Previous episodes with Jeff:

• The Energy of Excellence
• The Fundamentals of Service in Luxury Hospitality
• The Experience That Earned Us Michelin’s Three Key Distinction

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Jeff Wielgopolan of Meadowood Napa Valley explains what it means for a guest experience to be consistent within itself, with the setting, language, and service all fitting together. He shares how that coherence can look different across properties and individual guests, including a bellman in Johannesburg whose personal response met him exactly where he was after a long journey.

More conversations with Jeff:

• The Energy of Excellence
• The Fundamentals of Service in Luxury Hospitality
• The Experience That Earned Us Michelin’s Three Key Distinction

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Jeff Wielgopolan, Service Director at Meadowood Napa Valley & The Napa Valley Reserve and former Senior Vice President of Learning & Development at Forbes Travel Guide, joins us to explore what excellence looks and feels like in hospitality.  He explains why you often sense the quality of a hospitality experience within the first minutes, and how team energy, attentiveness, and simple acts of service shape the guest experience.  You’ll hear examples from Meadowood and Raffles Warsaw, plus Jeff’s story of a bartender who remembered him five years later and why those personal connections keep guests coming back.

Previous episodes with Jeff:

•  The Fundamentals of Service in Luxury Hospitality: Listen here 
•  The Experience That Earned Us Michelin’s Three Key Distinction: Listen here

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

This summer, Hospitality Daily founder Josiah Mackenzie did something he’d wanted to do for years: drive across the U.S. coast to coast. In this episode, he shares some of the experiences that stood out to him, what he appreciated as a guest, and how an evening gone wrong reminded him how important hospitality is.

Mentioned in this episode: 

• evo Hotel Salt Lake City 
• Conversation with Kevin Masse of Small State Provisions 

Share with Josiah what stood out to you about your travels here

A few more resources:

• If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. 
• You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
• If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
• Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.

If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!

Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands