Marriott deploying front desk AI to assign rooms, Elite upgrades
Marriott will soon be automating the process of assigning guest rooms. While replacing human tasks with AI doesn’t always sound like a customer centric move, maybe this is actually good news?
I first covered this topic a couple of weeks ago, but want to provide an update, as we now have a date for when this process will be implemented.
Marriott is automating task of assigning rooms
Marriott Chief Technology Officer Naveen Manga participated in the Skift Data and AI Summit a few weeks ago, talking about the incremental progress that the company is making with AI. One comment stood out to me, in particular.
Marriott will soon be deploying an AI tool that will automate the task of hotel room assignments for front desk staff. As described by Manga, “essentially, taking hours and hours of manual work — all that heads down work the associates do — and in a fraction of a second, 1.2 million rooms can be assigned.”
Hotels assigning rooms on a daily basis is a big task, both given that it needs to be done daily, and also given the number of considerations that go into this. Front desk staffs have to consider things like arrival times, room preferences, occupancy levels, elite status or other upgrade eligibility, etc.
When it comes to upgrades, it’s my understanding that Marriott currently has a system that secretly prioritizes guests for room upgrades, based on elite status and other factors. Then it’s up to the front desk agents to run down that list, upgrade guests, and assign rooms.
We’ve now learned that this new process will be implemented as of July 14, 2025. Here’s how Marriott describes this new process internally, per a Reddit user:
To drive greater operational efficiency and enhance the guest experience, Marriott is launching a technology-driven enhancement that will streamline how upgrades are managed across hotels. ACUs will build on the current complimentary upgrade system to place Marriott Bonvoy Gold and higher-tier Elite members in a higher room category.
Is automation good or bad for hotel guests?
Generally speaking, when we hear of AI in the hotel industry, it’s not good news. The intent is typically for the hotel to cut costs and improve the bottom line, rather than improving the guest experience. However, on the surface, I feel like automating room assignments might actually have some upside, or at worst, be neutral.
After all, a computer can assign room types most fairly based on a variety of factors. Furthermore, for hotels that aren’t great about upgrading, maybe automating the assigning of rooms will actually increase the number of upgrades that are given out. That assumes that the AI tool doesn’t have a “hotel owner hates Bonvoy members” setting, that hotels can choose to toggle on.
As always, the devil is in the details, and a tool like this is only as good as it’s instructed to be by its creators. I’m very curious to see to what extent this new system does its best to upgrade guests, or if hotels can find a way to game this system and avoid providing upgrades. Marriott’s general issue is its lack of attention to detail with guest experience, and the extent to which it lets hotels get away with shenanigans. Can an AI tool help in those areas? I guess time will tell…
Bottom line
As of July 14, 2025, Marriott will begin automating the process of assigning guest rooms on the day of arrival, making jobs easier for front desk staff. While I’m generally skeptical of the extent to which AI improves customer experience, I have more faith in a computer than I do in the average front desk Marriott employee when it comes to assigning upgrades, so I wouldn’t necessarily consider this to be bad news.
To be clear, that’s not a dig at Marriott employees, as they’re typically just doing what they’re told to do. The issue is the hotel owners that want the global distribution power of Marriott (thanks largely to the Bonvoy program), without providing the benefits that make it popular. It’ll be interesting to see if we notice any difference with upgrades and room assignments once this is rolled out.
What do you make of this new Marriott AI tool for assigning rooms?
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