The utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly at the forefront of innovation in the hospitality industry. The subject was especially prevalent at HITEC 2025, as educational sessions highlighted both the benefits and risks of AI, while various products in the HITEC Exhibit Hall showcased a wide range of ways that companies are integrating the constantly evolving technology. For IDeaS Revenue Solutions, using AI isn’t a new development, as it has been part of their revenue management software since the company was founded over three decades ago. However, IDeaS continues to navigate the unpredictable advancement of AI, and Chief Evangelist and Development Officer Klaus Kohlmayr discussed the company’s approach with LODGING while at HITEC 2025.
AI is a popular topic at HITEC 2025. How is IDeaS using AI and navigating its evolution?
You have the human side, right, and then you have the technology side. For us, you also have the mathematics side. We’ve been using AI in our algorithms and mathematics since we founded the company 35 years ago, so AI has always been at the core of what we do—pricing and revenue management. Now, you have the notion of, “How do I make my interactions better with technology? How do I make it more natural [and] language-based? How do I make it more self-service?” Because people can interact differently. How do I make it more efficient? So, [for] example, when we used to install a new system, it took three days for somebody to configure the system, and then we started using AI to take a look at the type of hotel and say, “What do we know using AI? What can we know about this hotel that we can preconfigure the system?” We [have] reduced the amount of time from three days to now, hours, that somebody gets the system probably 70, 80 percent preconfigured. You just have to check it [and] make sure it works, and then they fill in a few extra things. So, we’re using AI to take all the data in, and then say, this hotel looks like this, hence the configuration should look like that. So that is a huge time-saver. We’re doing that in many different areas. Customer support, productivity, [and] reporting, so it’s been exciting, but at the moment, it’s more at the background. How do we make people more efficient? How do we save them time? How do we increase productivity? And then the technology part, how do we exchange data more efficiently through AI?
IDeaS recently announced the debut of IDeaS Spotlight, a demand intelligence solution that uses AI and helps marketers identify high-value opportunities. What went into the process of launching the solution?
It was the No. 1 ask by our clients that we bring marketing and revenue management closer together, and that we give the marketing folks visibility into some of the secret sauce of the revenue management system to help them spend the marketing dollars more efficiently. We’re taking AI, and we’re using the revenue management data and what we know about the hotel’s future demand and price sensitivity, and we tell the marketing folks, you have these demand periods. You should be spending your money in the second week of October and not the first week of December because if you spend it in the second week of October, you get more return on the investment. And we do that not just by day, but by channel, by segment, so we’re helping the marketing teams become more efficient and more productive. In the current world, the way it works when [people] call each other and say, “Hey, you should be running a campaign in six months, and I think we need extra bookings.” Or the marketing folks go out and spend money where they shouldn’t be spending money because the hotel’s going to be full anyway. So, we’ve heard that from our clients, and we said, “OK, what can we build to connect those two functions?” And we have early adopters on it. There’s a bunch of hotels using it. The marketing folks love it. They used to have that kind of data, but it was in different places, so they had to ask for it, and it was in Excel. Now it’s all in one place. They can see immediately where they should be spending.
How do you see IDeaS Spotlight being scaled once it officially launches in July?
We have a product, Spotlight, that’s the first version of that, [and it] provides information to the marketing folks. Going forward, what we want to do is not just have the information, but also then, how do you [take] action on that? How do you get more granular in the information that we provide? How does it trigger activities? How do I trigger it, through the tool, but [also] with other parties? How do we get more data from third parties? How do we then create more of an ecosystem with the marketing automation providers that are already out there? Most hotels use some form of marketing information tool. They should be able to trigger some of them through our technology down the road. And they should be getting data in from some of those tools as well. So, it’ll be more data-rich, and it’ll be more action-based. Then that information, what happens with campaigns, also feeds back into the revenue management system. The revenue management systems side can say, “I see now that there’s a campaign that’s just been launched for the second week of October. I’m going to now factor it into my forecast, and readjust my forecast.” Nobody has been able to do that yet.
IDeaS has been using AI for years, and it has become a large part of the conversation now. How have you seen the utilization of AI change in the hospitality industry in recent years?
AI has always been in the background in our company. It does the models, the calculations, and the algorithms. [They’re] all based on AI. Now, it’s moving into the user experience. How do I find information quicker? How do I get the right answer? How do I get to the right data point instead of going through five layers of menus? What is happening in my market? Or why is my competitor changing prices, or what is my forecast? So, it’s the user experience that changes. And down the road, we always say that the best UI should be no UI because you just want to have this technology that is interactive, a dialogue rather than a one-way street. That’s what’s changing.
Beyond the launch of Spotlight, what else is a key focus for IDeaS right now?
We have a big push on, “How do we make our technology or technology in general, personalized?” Everyone talks about personalization and experiences that matter. We’re taking a concept and saying, “How do we make a revenue management system, the different products that we have, personalized to the user that is using the system? How do we give a resort property revenue manager the fit-for-purpose experience in the system? What capabilities do they need versus a city hotel, versus a casino, or a campground or holiday park?” Right now, it’s in the traditional way: software is a box, and everyone uses the same box with some slight variations. In the future, you should be able to say, if you’re a campground, here’s five things you get. If you’re a casino, you get 20 things, and if you’re an all-inclusive resort, you get 10 other things. You want to have a personalized experience when interacting with technology, and then you do that in a way that incorporates generative AI, how you’re interacting with the system, more natural language and conversational style. We’re kind of on this journey of saying, how do we make that personalized? How would you bring that to life? And then, how do we incorporate more data, and how do we do that in a way that incorporates all that amazing AI?
