Hospitality must be ‘wary of over-using AI in guest experience’

A leading AI expert has said that businesses looking to incorporate AI into their operations should be cautious of over-using it in customer-facing roles.

Digital marketing and AI expert Will Francis made the comments ahead of his appearance of The Caterer’s AI for Guest Experience webinar next month, sponsored by Lolly.

Francis said that while AI could be used by the industry to answer basic questions and FAQs online (known as large language models/LLMs), he said hospitality should be “very wary” of using it for premium experiences.

He said that, on a recent trip, he used the hotel’s WhatsApp concierge: “It was really nice, but it was a human on the other end, and I could tell it was human on the other end. If it had been a chatbot, the premium-ness of that would have gone down because it was a fancy place [but] it wouldn’t have felt fancy. Hospitality has to be very wary of that.”

He said customers pay for human experience, and over-reliance on bots risks making that experience feel “low grade”.

Francis is speaking on the panel at The Caterer’s AI for Guest Experience webinar. Joining Francis will be Dean Culpan, general manager at South Place hotel, and David Turner, chief technology officer at Compass Group UK & Ireland.

Francis said one of his key messages will be that “AI is just a tool” which can help operators to understand “big spreadsheets for numbers and analysing them, or understanding customer data, customer habits, customer behaviours – it’s really good for doing that”.

Hear more from Francis during the webinar on 28 January 2026 at 10am. Whatever the scale of your hospitality operation, The Caterer’s AI for Guest Experience webinar will provide actionable strategies and insider insights to help you stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market.