AI in hotels: it's about governance, not model power
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The Baker's Dozen Checks In is not about pastries. It's the name of a new analysis from McKinsey's 2025 Technology Trends Outlook, filtered specifically for hospitality. And its main message: agentic AIIA agenticaAgentic AI is a system that does not just answer, it acts on its own to reach a goal. It searches, compares, books and pays without a person steering every step. In travel it threatens to sit between the guest and the... is already reshaping the booking layer, but the real bottleneck isn't model capability. It's governance.
I read the full piece on Hospitality Net and it confirms something I've been saying for a while. The technology is ready. The question is whether hotels have the rules, the oversight and the data hygiene to let AI agents act on their behalf. McKinsey argues that without clear governance, adoption will stall. Not because the models aren't good enough, but because nobody can prove who's accountable when an agent makes a mistake.
That's a refreshing angle, because most conversations about hotel AI focus on flashy features. This one puts the finger on the boring stuff: policies, logging, verification. And it's exactly there where early adopters will win. Hotels that set up simple AI governance now will launch agents faster and safer than those that wait for perfect tech.
I'm not saying you need a compliance department overnight. Start small: define who approves an AI-generated offer, how the system logs decisions, and what happens when a guest disputes an action. That's manageable. And it turns a potential risk into a competitive advantage.
For hoteliers, my advice: read the analysis, but don't get scared by the word governance. See it as the foundation that frees you to experiment. The sooner you have clear rules, the sooner you can let AI take on real tasks like dynamic pricingDynamic pricingDynamic pricing adjusts rates in real time based on demand, competition, lead time and other factors. Instead of a fixed price, the hotel goes up when pressure is high and down when supply is loose. It is the foundati... or personalized upsellsUpsellingUpselling is convincing a guest to move up to a better version of what they were already buying. A room with a view, a suite or a rate with breakfast are typical cases. It raises the ticket without acquiring a new cus....
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