One of the biggest changes in guest behavior is the expectation around hotel communication. In an always-on digital world, travelers expect to be able to message properties at any time of day, and to get considered responses quickly and in their own language.
If you’re a hotelier, you’ve likely seen that the volume of messages your hotel receives is on the rise. Between email, WhatsApp, OTA platforms and social media, keeping up has become an operational challenge. That’s where AI-powered chatbots can step in, transforming how hotels communicate and freeing up staff to focus on high-value, high-touch interactions.
From the Mews Marketplace alone, over a thousand hotels have already deployed an AI chatbot or a CRM with AI capabilities. Four providers are leading the charge: Akia, Duve, Runnr.ai and HiJiffy. While each takes a different approach, all are reshaping the guest journey in ways that drive efficiency, personalization and revenue. Let’s explore how.
Akia – building guest journeys with automation
Akia positions itself as a guest experience platform, using AI to streamline back-and-forth communication and offload repetitive tasks from front desk teams. The platform lets hoteliers design guest journeys across multiple touchpoints and build “mini apps” for things like digital registration cards or surveys.
By integrating deeply with Mews APIs, Akia’s AI agents can respond to early check-in or upgrade requests in real time, checking availability, applying pricing rules and confirming directly with the guest – all without staff intervention. Future developments aim to extend these AI capabilities beyond guest comms into areas like revenue forecasting and marketing campaign creation.
Choose Akia for: consistent, friendly responses to common queries – freeing teams to focus on in-person guest interactions.
Duve – scaling personalization across the guest lifecycle
Duve offers a unified inbox for every communication channel, from WhatsApp to Booking.com. Its differentiator is dynamic personalization: for each incoming question, the AI creates a fresh, context-rich dataset, pulling in guest profile details, reservation info, and live availability from Mews before crafting a tailored response.
This approach allows hotels to deliver the kind of personalized service a GM would give if they could greet every guest themselves – but at scale. One large hotel group cut its guest communications team from 200 property-level staff to a centralized team of 24, without losing personalization.
Choose Duve for: mass personalization – treating every guest as an individual without overstaffing.
Runnr.ai – next-level WhatsApp concierge
Runnr.ai focuses on WhatsApp as the primary communication channel, integrating with Mews to send timely, proactive messages from booking confirmation to post-check-out. The AI not only answers FAQs but also processes upsells, sends online check-in links, delivers mobile keys and automates housekeeping requests.
Hotels report an 80% guest engagement rate via WhatsApp and a significant drop in inbound calls and emails. Upsell prompts – like breakfast offers – are automatically made every time, ensuring opportunities aren’t missed.
Choose Runnr.ai for: high guest engagement on the world’s most-used messaging app, paired with task automation that drives revenue.
HiJiffy – unifying every channel with an AI ‘brain’
HiJiffy brings all guest communications – from web chat to OTA inboxes – into one platform, resolving up to 85% of queries instantly. Its AI uses eight years of hospitality data and integrates with Mews to send targeted in-stay campaigns triggered by reservation changes.
One standout feature is sentiment analysis, which identifies guest frustration levels and prioritizes urgent cases for human follow-up. HiJiffy is also working on surfacing richer guest insights in the PMS, so staff can see key conversation history and preferences at check-in.
Choose HiJiffy for: centralized multi-channel management with smart escalation to protect guest satisfaction.
Why hoteliers should keep experimenting
The pace of AI innovation in hospitality is extraordinary. What’s cutting-edge today will be table stakes tomorrow. The beauty of modern tech is that you no longer have to commit to a long, inflexible contract – you can trial, measure and pivot quickly.
Whether your goal is to cut down on repetitive admin, increase upsells or deliver more personalized service at scale, AI chatbots are already proving their worth in hotels worldwide. The key is to start experimenting, find the right fit for your operation, and keep evolving as the technology does.
If you’d like to know more about AI chatbots for hotels and how these four leaders could work in your property, check out episode 39 of Matt Talks: Top 4 AI chatbots on Mews Marketplace for hotels.
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About Mews
Mews is the leading platform for the new era of hospitality. Powering over 12,500 customers across more than 85 countries, Mews Hospitality Cloud is designed to streamline operations for modern hoteliers, transform the guest experience and create more profitable businesses. Customers include BWH Hotels, Strawberry, The Social Hub and Airelles Collection. Mews was named Best PMS (2024, 2025) and listed among the Best Places to Work in Hotel Tech (2021, 2022, 2024, 2025) by Hotel Tech Report. Mews has raised $410 million from investors including Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Kinnevik and Tiger Global to transform hospitality.
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