Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta has a low opinion of the way his industry handles dissatisfied guests. The typical model is a guest who grumbles at the front desk on checkout and walks away with what he mockingly called "a bazillion Honors points." 

Asked on T. Rowe Price's The Angle podcast this week how AI meaningfully changes the business in five years, Nassetta said "problem resolution" was a major opportunity.

Instead of buying forgiveness at checkout, Hilton's systems would catch the complaint "in the moment" through messaging and "scraping social.” Staff would then fix it while the guest is still in the building. 

New tech plumbing could route a towel request from room 213 to housekeeping more quickly than relying only on humans to relay messages. 

Better service recovery will lift satisfaction scores, Nassetta argued, and that will eventually compound into loyalty.

Another AI opportunity Nassetta mentioned was more targeted and relevant marketing messages. Hilton knows what a member has booked, browsed, and liked at the company, and Nassetta wants to tap that data to serve back as what he called "micro-servings" of relevant offers. 

"It's early days, but AI will revolutionize the way people interact with us digitally," Nassetta said.

The bet underneath both opportunities is that Hilton's advantage is increasingly its data. 

Nassetta will speak at Skift Global Forum in September in New York.

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