A NEW update to hotels could mean more room charges for guests in the near future.
The change comes as companies continue to find ways for artificial intelligence to assist their operations.
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Jordan Hollander, cofounder of Hoteltechreport.com, which helps hotel companies find digital products, explained that several prominent hotel brands already work with some form of AI.
“I’ve been seeing more hotels experiment with AI across operations, but not quite in the same way Hertz is using it for automated damage detection and billing,” Hollander told CNBC recently.
“That said, we’re not far off.”
Hertz is notably one of the most popular rental car companies in the United States, and recently began implementing an AI feature that automatically scans for any damage on cars, later charging it to a customer.
According to Hollander, several hotels currently use AI-powered sensors to monitor air quality in rooms and trigger fines for smoking or vaping when its not allowed.
Except, both for Hertz and the hotels, sometimes there are false positives.
“Like someone using a hairdryer or aerosol spray — and guests get hit with $500 charges without ever lighting up,” Hollander explained.
“It’s not hard to imagine how that could go south quickly.”
CONSUMER PUSHBACK
Of course, the use of AI in general in the hospitality industry would be controversial, and within hotel rooms, there’s already been some backlash on Reddit.
“Seems like a fast way to lose that customer’s business and the company they are with,” a Redditor fumed.
“And hotels are just the beginning, imagine landlords and HOAs pulling the same s**t,” another warned.
“This needs a total ban before it spirals out of control with jail time as punishment if anybody is caught doing this level of violation of privacy.”
“Hotels have gotten worse as it is so this wouldn’t be much of a surprise,” a third added.
Hollander did point out that the AI sensors in rooms are very few and far between at this point, and currently AI for hotel operators is helping with energy usage, messaging guests, and improving housekeeping efficiency.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) tool created by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI.
After launching in November 2022, the AI chatbot has since exploded in both popularity and its own clever abilities.
ChatGPT is a language model that can produce text.
It can converse, generate readable text on demand and produce images and video based on what has been learned from a vast database of digital books, online writings and other media.
ChatGPT essentially works like a written dialogue between the AI system and the person asking it questions.
Although it now has a voice mode that gives it a voice to talk with humans like a phone call.
GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer and describes the type of model that can create AI-generated content.
If you prompt it, for example ask it to “write a short poem about flowers,” it will create a chunk of text based on that request.
ChatGPT can also hold conversations and even learn from things you’ve said.
It can handle very complicated prompts and is even being used by businesses to help with work.
But note that it might not always tell you the truth.
“ChatGPT is incredibly limited, but good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in 2022.
“There’s a risk of backlash if hotels start billing guests solely on what an algorithm says,” the expert acknowledged.
“The moment a guest gets a charge and can’t get a straight answer about why or how it was verified, you’re in dangerous territory.”
“If guests feel like they’re being watched or nickel-and-dimed by a machine, it undermines the relationship completely,” he continued.
HERTZ CONTINUES ON
Hertz has also argued that its AI sensor offers more consistency when drivers are checking out than it does innaccuracies.
“For years, vehicle damage inspections have caused confusion and frustration,” a spokeswoman wrote to CNBC.
“The process was manual, subjective, and inconsistent, and that isn’t good enough for our customers or our business.”
The AI-powered inspections provide “much-needed precision, objectivity, and transparency to the process — giving our customers greater confidence that they won’t be charged for damage that didn’t occur during their rental, and a more efficient resolution process when damage does occur,” according to the Hertz spokeswoman.
Hertz also reported that of 500,000 rentals scanned so far, over 97% showed no billable damage.
Additionally, damage incidents or on a decline at those locations that have an AI-scanner equipped.
Still, it’s an experiment in progress for Hertz.
Gen Z workers are also opting for new career options as fears that AI will take over their positions in the coming years continues to grow.
A computer science professor also told The US Sun in an exclusive conversation this year that AI could lead to a grim future of the world where only 100 million people were left by 2300.
