Check-In with Bryan

The Big A.I. Opportunity Hotels Are Missing

• Bryan Fish

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Hospitality brands have more guest data than ever before — but most still are not using it to create truly personalized experiences.


In this episode of Check-In with Bryan, Bryan sits down with Billy FisCher of Very Good Ventures at the Digital Transformation Summit in Arlington, Texas, to talk about where AI is actually headed in hospitality, why so many brands are stuck with stale digital experiences, and what operators should be doing right now to prepare for the next wave of innovation.


Billy breaks down the disconnect between massive data warehouses and the actual guest experience, explaining why many hotel, travel, and restaurant brands have built powerful systems without creating meaningful personalization. The conversation also dives into the rise of generative AI, how customer expectations are changing, where brands should start experimenting, and why the smartest operators should focus on solving one friction point at a time instead of chasing hype.


They also explore:


  • Why hotel and travel digital experiences have started to feel stale
  • How AI could become the bridge between data and real-time personalization
  • What hospitality brands are getting wrong about implementation
  • Why operators should test AI through focused guest journey touchpoints
  • The difference between AI hype and actual practical use cases
  • Whether AI will replace hospitality jobs — or simply reshape them
  • Why apprenticeship and early-career development may be one of the biggest long-term concerns


If you’re in hospitality, hotels, travel, restaurants, or digital product strategy, this conversation offers a grounded look at where AI is creating real opportunity — and where the industry still has work to do.


Billy also shares insight into the work being done at Very Good Ventures and how brands can begin thinking more strategically about generative UI, digital transformation, and customer experience design.


Subscribe for more conversations with the leaders shaping hospitality, travel, and business.


#Hospitality #AI #DigitalTransformation #Hotels #GuestExperience

SPEAKER_00

A lot of people in Argentist are afraid to ask out loud. Is AI going to replace hospitality jobs? Billy's got grounded, thoughtful answers to all of it. This episode of Check In with Brian is brought to you by Reliance Hospitality, hospitality consulting, product management, and business process outsourcing built exclusively for the owner's side of the table. PIPS, renovations, budgets, brand compliance. We manage it all so you don't have to. Learn more at RelianceHospitality.com. Welcome back, everyone, to this week's episode of Check In with Brian. I'm your host, Brian Fish, and we are still coming to you this week from the Digital Transformation and Hospitality Summit here in Arlington, Texas, at the Lowe's Hotel put on by our friends over at Industry Now. Now, day one, we had a keynote address that was given by a gentleman that totally nailed it for me. AI is the number one topic in our business right now. And this guy put one slide up on the screen and it totally, I was like, this is the guy I got to talk to. And I sent Tyler out, he was able to get the interview, which I was very happy about. But the slide was about all the data that exists out in the data warehouse. And on the other side with our PMS CRM systems and how we that data never gets from point A to point B. And he was explaining how AI can help in this process. So he's amazing, and I think all of you are gonna love this interview with him. Um, it's Billy Fisher from Very Good Ventures. Billy's the executive vice president of business development at VGV, Very Good Ventures, the leading Flutter and digital application development consultancy. So he delivered the keynote that absolutely I loved. It was honestly, I think it's the best keynote of the event. But Billy's got a decade of leadership, well, over a decade, but he's not that old. Over a decade of leadership in digital product consulting. Billy's helped some of the biggest brands in entertainment, travel, and hospitality harness technology to drive revenue and exceed customer expectations. Now, VGV works with some of the world's most innovative companies, including Universal Destinations and Experiences, Hamilton on Broadway, JSX, and Track House Racing, building high-performance digital experiences powered by Flutter and AI. Side note, Flutter is an application platform that they can build the app and then they like port it to other systems. I thought you'd be interested in that. Um, Billy holds a degree in communication arts with a focus on public relations from Ohio Northern University, and he's currently based in Columbus, Ohio. And uh great guy. This interview, I think, is one of my favorite that we've done in a while. And we dig into where AI is going in the business, how it affects people, if it is going to affect jobs, and he's just a downright nice guy, and we talk a little bit about his uh passion for equestrian. I it's a very interesting conversation, but you're going to love it. I know you will. And when we come back after this break, we will sit down with Billy. I got to uh check you out yesterday giving the keynote here at the Digital Transformation Summit in Arlington, Texas. Um, how have you enjoyed the show so far?

SPEAKER_01

It's been great. It's uh my first time at this show and uh had the chance to to meet some new faces and uh uh also expand, you know, even when you think of hospitality, like it's always the hotel industry, but uh meeting the folks at KOA and Eramark and hearing about all the different things.

SPEAKER_00

KOA, it's so funny. We were at a table at lunch yesterday, and there was somebody that was very excited about KOA. And I'm like, who knew? Yeah, camping was gonna be exactly yeah.

SPEAKER_01

The hospitality industry is wider than I think we uh sometimes.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, 100%. Um, well, before we get into all the detail of AI and digital transformation, outside of the world of tech and digital product development, what's something you're really passionate about personally right now?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, outside of tech, uh my my wife and I are into horses and um and and so we rescue horses and um we we do a lot of work in the equine therapy world where um you know horses are a magical animal and uh people that have gone through trauma and autistic uh uh challenges, horses can uh do a lot of a lot of amazing things there.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, so that's similar to like it's sort of like a emotional sport animal.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. You know, horse horse can feel your heartbeat from over 10 feet away, and so it's a uh a really uh amazing animal that can read you, but then can also help regulate uh uh a lot of challenges.

SPEAKER_00

I may have to come to Ohio because I always I rode a horse once. I had a um SVP of a company I was working for take us out horseback riding because she was all she was really big into horses. It was the best Sunday afternoon I ever spent in my life, and then I've never gone again. Yeah, but I always tell everybody it was like the best relaxing thing I ever did.

SPEAKER_01

What I tell people is you don't have to actually ride a horse to even enjoy because a lot of people are scared, and so we'll get people doing like groundwork and and things with a horse, and it'll uh it'll be a really important moment. Speed away. Yeah, pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_00

That is wild. That's why I never knew that. I mean, I might know dogs usually because that's why they sleep so close to you because they can just like keep breathing and stuff.

SPEAKER_01

We like dogs too, but yeah, horses are are definitely a passion of ours.

SPEAKER_00

That's wild. I mean, you think about it, it's a large animal. Yeah, it's a lot of senses. No doubt about it. Wow. Well, um, yesterday you gave a keynote address on the first day of the conference that uh really spoke to me. We chatted a little bit before we started filming that you know, right now in the whole world of tech and AI, hospitality is really, you know, I look at it from I remember back when we were using terminal systems and like Encore with I with uh holiday in and some of those other ancient systems that are some are still actually running today. Exactly. Um but the way that things have changed since 20, well, since 2000 really to where we're at now in 2026, it's I guess now I'm starting to be that guy that uh 20 years ago was like 20 years ago. You know, 20 years ago when I started, 25 years ago when I started the business. It like it looks so different from a technical standpoint just because we have so much available to us now that we never would have thought to have, or that we would have ever been able to afford to have. And uh one thing you said yesterday that I just want to dive right into this morning is you we have all this data out there and you had a great graphic of all this demographic data and like information about your guests on the left side, yeah. And there were and then the system or the CRM or the PMS, I think it was on the right hand side, and the fact that the data never makes it its way across. And it really was speaking to me from the fact that you know, one thing since the pandemic, we've really lost in hospitality the personalization effort. We're not making the effort to personalize the guest stays anymore in a world where travelers right now want as many experiential things as possible. Like it seems like something we would be more focused because we can do more research on people now than we ever could have. Right. So I guess number one, you're probably just a genius, so that's how you came up with that. But I'm sure there's a technical thing that you guys that you see in like actual practice that is cause like causes this, you know, and it really got me all day yesterday. I kept thinking about the fact, I'm like, no, this is absolutely we like more data warehouse now than we ever have. Yet we're just not using it right.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, we the organizations from big to mid-size, you know, the small independents probably uh they they have different challenges, have spent millions of dollars building up data warehouse solutions, customer data platforms. Um, I mean, we've uh we've established all of that. I mean, it's been something we've been talking about. So so many of these organizations have like a uh F1 engine that they they've developed uh that's pulling in all sorts of data. And uh a lot of organizations are still taking that Formula One engine that they've built and placing it in a minivan and um and and you know, feeling like, okay, they're feeling good about themselves. And it's one of the reasons why I'm I'm excited about AI because as much as I'm throwing out this analogy that sounds super easy, you've got all this data, just deliver it to the customer, it is hard to take a lot of organizations that have bought these big clunky systems that make all these big promises, harness your data, deliver it in one way. But to do it at scale is actually really difficult.

SPEAKER_00

And do you find that when they those big clunky systems? I'm just curious, are a lot of those legacy systems that have they've been they're those vendors are trying to keep up, and so they're saying, oh, it's going to do this, but the system just keeps getting bigger and bigger and not easier to handle.

SPEAKER_01

And they're not some of them aren't even archaic. Some of these are the you know, I'm not gonna name name shout any of them, but they they provide big promises, and then to actually do it though is really difficult. Um and so you get caught up in a sales cycle where it's like, hey, we've got the solution, you're gonna be able to pull in your data, deliver it to the customer across web, mobile, in-screen in the in the room. And when it actually gets to the tactical part of doing that, it's very difficult. And distraction hits, it's always more expensive.

SPEAKER_00

Because everybody always forgets the rollout, right? Right. That's I always feel even with like because we do like consulting on the construction side for hotels too. Yeah, and it surprises me like guys go to develop a hotel and then they completely forget you have to build the damn thing. Correct. And then the whole process, and then it has to open. Right. I've used that. I have to budget for like supplies from the hotels opening. Yes, like literally everything.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I've actually used that in like customer data platform projects, which is like a strong foundational element to doing, you know, building up your data strategy. I've had the client ask me, like, what's the ROI in the first three months once we do the uh while we're building the CDP, the customer data platform? Like, zero. It's like building a hotel. You're gonna be uh investing all of this money and building that up, and um you're not really gonna see anything uh for it. And so a lot of this, these strategies are kind of a long game type of strategy. You build the system and then you start to roll it out. And I think I've not seen very many organizations actually get that right over the long haul. And I think on the to your point of what my my slide, I think that's being felt on the customer side. So all these brands have all of this data. I mean, I'm a loyal Delta guy, a loyal Hilton guy, and this experience has been the same for me for uh the last five to ten years, where uh there's no personalization in there. They know so much about me. And the closest to personalization that it feels is uh this isn't a digital personalization, but like the Delta flight attendant will like walk down the aisle and read uh on a note, like, thank you, Billy, for being a platinum medallion. It's like, well, that actually doesn't feel very personalized anymore.

SPEAKER_00

That was checking, you're literally checking a box off the list. It's like they said you need to go thank these people, and here's their lists.

SPEAKER_01

But they have all of this data about where I'm traveling. They could probably figure out if it's a business trip or not.

SPEAKER_00

They probably uh know what your wife's name is, you've probably traveled.

SPEAKER_01

No doubt about it. They because they have access to my Amex as well. They know how many Delta Sky Club passes I have left could help me optimize when to use it versus when to not use it.

SPEAKER_00

They know the restaurants you eat at a lot. Yeah, they could send you a gift card. Yep.

SPEAKER_01

And so there's opportunities. But it's like a static, still you log in, it's a static menu. Right. Um, and if I sat next to you or someone else that's a Delta user, all of our experiences would look identical. And it's not terrible, but it's certainly not the vision that we've all talked about for the last at these conferences 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00

No, and I feel like the last couple years, especially AI has been this everything is AI. And I and I am cautioned a lot of people, and I'm sure you run into this in your line of work. There's so much now where everyone's just sticking AI on, like powered by AI, empowered by this. It's a bit of a scramble. It's a scramble, and then it's is it actually AI, or did they just rebrand what they were already doing? Because a lot of people were using machine learning models before where it's you know, yeah, it's been programmed to kind of respond based on what you're at being it's being asked, but it can't generate an answer to anything. Right. Um and it it just boggles my mind that because those large companies like Delta, Hilton, Merritt, IHG, like I think we can talk about all of them. They all suffer, I think, from the same thing. Like you have a massive data warehouse, but you aren't doing anything to pull together. And I love your minivan example. That it's totally what it feels like on the operator side. Yeah. It's like, why don't we have an ability to do this? And I know part of it's cost because the owners of these assets have to fund Yeah, yeah, franchise models get in the way.

SPEAKER_01

There's all these things.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there's a lot of things, and I um I do wonder we have an act, we actually have an attorney down in Houston that we've had on the podcast before, Stephen Barth, and he goes by the hospitalitylawyer.com as a brand. We're gonna have to have him on probably soon to have a conversation. Because I do wonder legally if those large companies, the the franchisers, if that's part, because that's usually where I feel like they start to draw red lines is they don't want they're like, Am I gonna get sued? Yeah, and so they don't want to go too overboard by sharing the information because they do lose a commodicum of control once it's opened up to the franchise community, right? Um, but they're not even doing it in the managed side. Yeah. So I'm like, you if one company, and I honestly think if any company does it, it'll surprise you. I think Hyatt could be somebody that all of a sudden comes out because Hyatt I always feel like rises out of the ashes. Yeah, and uh maybe like it's that perfect size where they're not so and it's luxury mostly, so they it's that client base that would appreciate it more. No, like yeah, we have all these systems, so it's like if you have an issue, if you've had an issue at the last three hotels you're at, there should be something to say, hey, like this guy's having an issue at our hotel, so it flags something at the brand level to say, let's do something to try to recover from this.

SPEAKER_01

Well, what what will be interesting over the next year or two is expectations. And I think customer expectations do tend to, you know, there's a couple things that drive innovation and digital. Customer expectations is one of them. Uh, and certainly ROI and business case uh development is is is another one that uh is probably the number one that driver. And I think as more folks are using like real generative AIs, like everybody is poking around with Chat GPT now. Right. Not everybody, but it's like it's a compl a rising, um rising environment. And and everybody's starting as they get more comfortable starting to experience like how much the agent will start to know them. Right. You've seen these prompts of like people are having fun, like, hey, ChatGPT, based on everything you know about me, write a paragraph uh bio for me.

SPEAKER_00

I haven't done that yet because I don't want to know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, or you'll say, like, hey, uh prank out a picture uh uh of of what you think my life is like, and it's always like almost startling. Wow, that's really it knows me. Yeah, and so the that's going to change customer expectations of like what they're experiencing and interacting in a digital environment. Like this agent knows my preferences, who I am, and it's some brands are gonna lead the way and start to deliver on that same type of personal experience on the digital front. And it's just gonna change expectations across the entire ecosystem. We've seen that in many industries where you know Chick-fil-A did that in the food service space, where you know, online ordering was slightly available, but then all of a sudden they were the first ones to do pickup ability to where you could order ahead on the mobile app, pull into a parking spot, and some person runs it out to you. And nobody had really done that at the time. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, customers expect that. Like if Chick-fil-A can do it, why can't McDonald's?

SPEAKER_00

And actually, I will tell you, Chick-fil-A, that's so funny. I never actually thought about it, but I will go there for breakfast every once in a while. They're way too happy in the morning with the one. I always hate that with the food's not ready and then they want to talk to you. It's like, I don't want to talk to you. It's six o'clock in the morning. We are not happy. They have their like online ordering system I actually really do like because you place the like I'll place the order at my house, it like tracks my location, yeah. And then it'll like then sends me a message when I'm almost there saying that they've already like sent it to the kitchen to like prepare. And then they just built a new one near us, or they renovate. I love how they renovate anymore, they just tear it down. Yeah, they're like, we're just gonna tear it down. Yeah, and like McDonald's in a while, they're like, we're gonna tear it down and build this massive drive-thru. But now you go up and you um well at one location in Phoenix, you scan a bar, a QR code, yeah, and then you just keep going. But the new one I went to, I think it's the one downtown Phoenix. I think that's the one. It like used the location since I shared it. I didn't even have to scan the QR code. It was like, oh, we see you're here. Go ahead and pull forward.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so there's mapping technology on the back end that knows that you pulled into the parking lot.

SPEAKER_00

It makes it so seamless.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you're not giving somebody a code and that's kind of like what that's like a level up expectation. Uh and somebody, maybe it's high that's gonna roll and start to leverage AI to deploy true personalization where you maybe uh check in, you book a hotel on the website, a room on the website, you check in via the mobile app, you walk into the room, uh, maybe you check in on a kiosk when you first uh uh to get your key when you walk into the lobby, and then you walk up and there's uh an experience on the screen, or maybe even an experience on the window uh that's displayed uh digitally, and it all feels exactly the same. Right. Um, like the same designer handcrafted it um with uh a consistent element. Not many hotels have that feel because uh there's different systems on the back end, which again the customer could could care less about. But we we put that burden on the customer all the time. And so we think that AI is gonna provide the opportunity to actually deliver on that, yeah, um, where there's all these constraints, and as development gets easier and more efficient, and as access to these AI models continues to open up, uh there's gonna be some really cool innovation. I think that's we're gonna about to hit another like uh level up because really across QSR, hospitality, entertainment, the digital experience has gotten pretty stale. Same.

SPEAKER_00

The sea of sameness now, kind of like the buildings have gotten too. Yeah. Um so does the AI engine do they do you see them really acting as the as the bridge essentially to get to move the information from system to system and then actually execute on it? Or will we still have to see the systems kind of figure out how to you know transport the data from point A to point B? Or does the AI or is there AI processes that essentially will be doing that for us?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I think there's some foundational elements that a lot of these organizations that we're talking about have invested a lot of money in. So a lot of structured data, and we think that uh organizations should be putting a lot of time into design style systems, really strong digital design systems. So if you're gonna give AI the ability to manipulate the user experience, well, you better have some guardrails defined of like what really solid on-brand design looks like and feels like. And so if you train the models on that, um it starts to open up that so I think a solid data foundation is really, really important. Most of these big organizations that I've talked to, they have that in place. They've invested a ton of money uh in that.

SPEAKER_00

So which is good because they know it's coming, they know these things are coming, so they're at least laying the groundwork for it.

SPEAKER_01

And some of our clients have already taken that first step where they start to deploy agents and they're like testing the waters a little bit. But the the experience is fairly underwhelming. It's nowhere close to that like level up experience that that I keep talking about. So, from a from an AI and the model standpoint, we're trying to advise clients to not get too bogged down and worried about that at the moment. One, because it'll just frustrate you. Um, because we're in that period where every three to six months there's just a complete change and shift that, and I've hit on this yesterday, where I've heard some people just like, I'm just gonna like wait it out. And uh, that's a scary uh endeavor, especially if you're a a big brand, um, to just kind of wait and see. Um, and we all know this every technology's been this way, where like people were skeptical about cloud adoption until all of a sudden they weren't.

SPEAKER_00

It was amazing to me, uh at least in the hospitality space and the hotel brands specifically, that we're still up until the pandemic were guarding access to the systems and PMS off property like it was gold. Yeah. And it is in a way, but then all of a sudden, overnight, when that you know, the world kind of forced us. Change. It was like, oh, we're gonna have to give you know remote access to all this stuff. And then like, and now you have conversations with the same people, and they're like, well, if it's not cloud based, then we can't even look at it. It's like, well, you know, five years ago you had a completely different opinion.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Continuing to like observe and watch these models, and even an organization can adopt one at the at the moment to invest in. I think I showed an architecture diagram to where we've tried to build this to where if you needed to leverage one model uh for one thing uh or in another model for another uh element, you could do that. Right. Uh or maybe you know, Gemini comes out with something amazing and you can you can plug that in.

SPEAKER_00

So each model's got its sweet spot, right? Right, right.

SPEAKER_01

And it's really it's I mean, I was about to say I'm not an expert on models, but who is at this point? Um and so we're all trying to to keep up and and pace ourselves as um, but it's what the the innovation that we've seen in the last year is is quite striking and remarkable. And so we're starting to shenwai, which I talked about yesterday, starting to to really believe the vision that's been we've been feeling this happening, and now it's starting to become truly real, where it's like, okay, we can actually start to manipulate, let AI manipulate the user interface to leverage the data, manipulate the universe interface to create a true one-to-one experience.

SPEAKER_00

And now other than Chick-fil-A, is there anybody in the hospitality QSR, any of those, any of those vertical, any vertical really, that you feel like they're leveraging it far ahead of where you would expect them to be right now?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think uh and that's what's interesting, is like this used to be a fun question to ask people, you know, like what's your favorite digital experience, somebody that really sets it apart. And like everybody used to say Starbucks or Apple and everything. And it's almost, I don't know, in my opinion, it's gotten kind of boring uh lately. Well, it all works the same. There's no difference. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

And you even online shopping, I mean, that's even at the basic level, online shopping's gotten very much the same because most use like Shopify. Shopify, or they're using like uh that a firm's been big on building out their shop pay. Yep, yeah. So like they're all using the same back-end system.

SPEAKER_01

So and that's kind of convenient, right? There's like a nice familiar thing. But what we've seen from an AI standpoint over the last year and a half is just a lot of these agents that are kind of underwhelming. And I think uh what we see on the client side is these are just part of AI like innovation budgets that are just being tested. Yeah, however, uh, I would predict over the next year we're gonna start to see like real valuable tools start to roll out because the models are getting really good. Executive sponsorship of these activities is now universal. Uh I've not talked to a single brand where they haven't said some version of like our executive team is all in on AI.

SPEAKER_00

Which I think it also shows the executive teams have changed, like the reigns have changed in a lot of ways, um, especially since the pandemic. So the good news I think for the industry is we have key players in those positions now that actually have lived in the digital space and understand, they understand at the base level what is happening. Yeah. Whereas I do feel like even if we go back seven, eight years ago, that was not right the case. No doubt about it.

SPEAKER_01

Um so I think everybody's behind this now. There is an element of efficiency, and you know, that's a whole separate conversation that uh you know we can have, but like I'm really excited about what it's gonna do for the front-end customer experience. Right.

SPEAKER_00

No, and uh exactly, and that kind of takes me to the next question. So if you're a hospitality operator right now, and you know, your mouth is watering over AI and you aren't doing anything right now. I guess this would be a two-parter because it's either because you're kind of locked down if you're in a franchise system of some sort, yeah, um, be it a restaurant or a hotel versus an independent um company. But where where would you say if they want to do something and leverage AI right now, where would you say put your time and resources into it now? Or would you say just wait?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So for like a brand, we can we can kind of talk about both of those a little bit. So for a brand, I and I mentioned this yesterday, I would encourage a brand to pick up uh a flow, an experience. And so maybe that's a check-in experience, maybe that's a pre-booking kind of trip planner. That's everybody's favorite example to use. Maybe it's a concierge kind of experience. Let's pick pick a flow and ideally pick one that's there's some friction or it's super stale. And I think that's where you can start to build out a test, whether you leverage your internal team or a consulting firm to like build out a POC that you can actually like get in the hands of customers. The best part about AI is you these things that used to take six months, heck, not to be extreme, but we could probably build a POC that we could play around with like in the next hour here. Now it wouldn't be hooked up to any data, it wouldn't really be real, but I would build a uh somewhat real POC that you could start to get in the hands of customers and you're saying like it used to be like it could take six months to just get the proof of concept. Yeah, for sure. Uh and so with some of these tools, again, how real is it is a is a big question. But but still we could have some conceptual ideas that we start testing uh very quickly. I would start with a little bit of like a workshop to figure out okay, where are their big friction points? Like what's the most frustrating element of our experience for our guest? And start to build out and test like uh a prototype of what could be um and keep it simple. Uh, because I think going with like our whole experience or from end to end from pre-book to after visit, that that um that's just gonna get really old.

SPEAKER_00

It's too big of a yeah, it's too big of a net to cast.

SPEAKER_01

And I would avoid falling into the trap of like just the classic agent of like let's just get a uh email.

SPEAKER_00

I would love the people that put the agent out because they just are told somebody told me to need one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, there was endless consulting firms selling agents and models and and that that sort of thing. We like to take a little bit more of a uh strategic approach to it. What are we actually trying to accomplish and what what would move the needle here? And so um that would be one area for the small independent guy. I got a lot of those questions yesterday, and I honestly I wasn't ready for it. I was not expecting that. You know, if you're uh if you're part of a franchise system, I think that is where there's kind of two opportunities. I was talking to the CFO of a franchise group yesterday, and he had not really played with AI at all. And and I was mentioning like, Oh, can you please pass the information?

SPEAKER_00

I'll be more than happy to provide him consulting service because that's because where AI has, I feel like, done well in our sector is our vendor partners on the finance side. So like we offer business process outsourcing for accounting. Yeah. Well, the only way we really could do it successfully is by using AI tools. But to your point, I have seen the companies that have had success are the ones that didn't try to like automate a thousand things, they took the pain point, so like invoice entry and stuff like that to make it exactly smooth.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I was encouraging him like, dude, you need to like start playing with this right away and uh and experimenting and hire a consultant to do some AI training, some AI workshops, and and get get I I encourage him, get your entire executive team just curious about this. Yeah, because it's hard to know how you might leverage it or what you might do if you're not if you're not touching it in some way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And I this is something I do want to make sure that we cover before we go, um, because this is something that's a big conversation. And we had this conversation a couple like I would say this was the big talk six years ago when the mobile apps with all the hotels started rolling out, even I think the airlines faces as well as oh my God, all the front-end customer service people are gonna get replaced because of the app and this and that. And so now there's this big fear in the world that AI is essentially gonna replace a lot of these human roles. Number one, do you actually think that's going to happen? And number two, do you feel like there's a risk that we could potentially overrely on AI, or do you feel like the workforce is going to kind of mold to like we did with everything else, where it's just part of the it's another tool in the box? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Interesting conversation, challenging one. I think from um from a people replacement, it varies so much by industry and like role type and and that that sort of thing. So it's hard to give like a blanketed answer to that. I think the human element of customer service will that not is is going to be late to be disrupted. It's gonna take a while, and who knows? That's a crystal ball. I but in the short term, I I don't think so. A lot of people I talked to over the last couple days have talked about how strapped they are, how lean uh they have so they're overwhelmed by the amount of things they need to do, get accomplished. I do think that is where instead of needing to hire an additional 10 folks or try to get headcount approval, AI could possibly provide some provide some assistance. The part I'm most nervous about or personally worried about is apprenticeship uh and what apprenticeship looks like in certain industries. Finance is a perfect one where uh uh the way to learn, you know, the CFO I was talking to yesterday, I'm sure he started his career as an apprentice, getting beat up doing spreadsheet work. And that is where um you AI uh probably eliminates the need for that role. So, how do we bring up young talent is I think a real problem that uh is going to be tricky. But the frontline staff, I think uh I I don't have a uh I've not seen a lot of proof of data points that say we're anywhere close to and we haven't seen it with like the mobile apps that rolled out with digital tech and everything.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I know like people in Hilton, because Hilton was first to the game with digital key, and everyone's like, oh, that's gonna replace the front desk. And my take, which I've been correct on this as of as of yet, and I think it's gonna continue this way, is the yeah, our front office, you might have had 30 people at a large hotel, maybe you're gonna have 15 moving forward. But the reality, the function of that desk will change a little bit. Where just like a PVX operator in a large hotel kind of went from being the phone operator to like the digital chat person that's fielding, there's fielding the same types of information just in a different way. But also there is a divide about consumers that actually know how to use and can adapt to the technology. And so then the front office kind of becomes a tech support desk as well. Yeah, and we saw the same thing back in like I remember at the holiday in in Columbus, Indiana in 2003, 2004, when Wi-Fi was out and you'd have to be giving out those stupid wireless bridges and trying to teach people like, do you need to plug this into your network port on your computer? Like, well, what's that? Like, can you bring it down to me and like you know, yeah, the computer looks so big you thought they brought their desktop with them?

SPEAKER_01

Right. Now, to your point about over-relying on AI, sure. I mean, it we're so early at the at the moment, it's uh yeah, it's like very speculative. Yeah. What I have found is uh folks that are when I when I see people starting to work with, particularly the Claude and Chat GPT, the agents, the people that are over-relying on it and are typically getting bad responses back, and they get they get it's kind of like junk in, junk out. Right. And so um the people that I've seen. Garbage in, garbage out. Exactly. It's uh so I think it like actually like using your strategic brain to to uh to to manipulate or or generate the results that you actually can be helpful, yeah uh is it still requires like a senior level expertise long term. I have no idea. None of us really do, honestly.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it would be if you know, yeah, you're gonna you'll make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Well, Billy, I appreciate you uh sitting down with me this morning. Um I know you're you've been running around like crazy, and I know you've got more to go to today. But uh if somebody wants to check out, um, I guess let's do two plugs here. If anyone wants to check out VGV very good ventures, yeah um, or get in direct contact with you, um, how do they how do they how do they find you?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so we're at very good.ventures, we've got a unicorn logo. Um, and we do have on our uh on our website a gen UI. I talked a lot about that yesterday, assessment. So it's like a a quiz that uh that you can take to is it a play on the word genuine? I don't think so. No, there's a lot of people uh that's a metal 90s uh RB singer, genuine is another uh not a play on it, but generative uh UI in terms of user uh the user interface is really where what it's a play on. And then also on LinkedIn, Billy Fisher, uh Fisher with a C is usually where I uh spend most of my professional time.

SPEAKER_00

And then uh after this conference, where's your next step?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I uh um I mentioned to you, I I can remember the name of the of the conference. I'm at a uh digital travel conference in San Diego here in in three weeks and actually gonna be uh presenting with our partners at Norwegian Cruise Lines. So we're um we're excited about that.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know why I don't know about this conference. I should probably find out why I don't have an invite.

SPEAKER_01

And then I've got a vacation coming up to Cabo, so I'm really excited about that. So go to Javier's right down there.

SPEAKER_00

Please go to Javiers. Well, Billy, thank you so much. Thank you. And uh enjoy the rest of your day. And I can't wait to see where this takes us. Yep, Sam, appreciate it. Thank you. We'll be right back. See, I told you you would love Billy. And the equestrian thing just I couldn't believe it. It was amazing. Ten feet away, the horse. I I just I can't get over it. But just an amazing guy, very intelligent, very smart. Uh, I loved all of his points that he made about AI. You know, it I he was absolutely right too. Like I I probably eat at Chick-fil-A too much, and they really did nail the ordering experience. And it's interesting to see how all these things evolve and kind of where we're at. But I think he gave some great advice in terms of how we can evaluate certain things, where we should get started if we're thinking about using AI, and you know, that whole idea that we can get to a proof of concept in an hour versus six months in the past changes the game. So, which obviously is why we're seeing so many things get rolled out in our industry right now that are really helping fine-tune out, especially in the back office, but to see how it will affect us on the front end and actually be able to personalize guest experiences more in the future. That's where I feel like we definitely need to go. So I'm sure most of you would agree with that as well. So thanks for watching, and we'll see you next week. Check in with Brian is a production of RH Media Productions, executive produced by Tyler Alexander. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Reliance Hospitality Global, Limited Co., its affiliates, or subsidiaries. All content is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only, and should not be considered as professional legal, financial, or investment advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making decisions regarding your business.

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