How Hyatt is Personalizing the Guest Experience with GenAI
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From privacy concerns to limitless potential, AI is rapidly impacting our evolving society. In this new season of the Brave Technologist podcast, we're demystifying artificial intelligence, challenging the status quo, and empowering everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. I'm your host, Luke Malks, VP of Business Operations at Brave Software, makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and search engine, now powering AI with the Brave Search API. ♪

You're listening to a new episode of The Brave Technologist, and this one features Roshana Purnian, who is the Director of Data Architecture and Platform Engineering at Hyatt, where she designs and manages large-scale tech platforms for data-driven decision-making. There, she led the development of an AI ML optimized analytics platform, enabling real-time data processing and algorithmic product development. In this episode, we discuss the potential for generative AI, specifically in enhancing customer engagement in the hospitality sector.

with examples of how they're leveraging emerging technologies and their 1,300 worldwide properties. Architecture and design to support various data science teams and pipelines involved with the customer's experience. How they hire at Hyatt, including what they look for when interviewing candidates and how they foster a culture of innovation amongst their teams. And now for this week's episode of The Brave Technologist. ♪

Hi, Roshana. Welcome to the Brave Technologist. How are you doing today? I'm good, Luke. Thanks for inviting me here. Yeah, thanks for coming. I've been looking forward to it. What kind of sparked your interest in data architecture and analytics? And how did you kind of transition into AI and machine learning? My career history is actually, you know, started with very humble beginnings, you know,

So I started my IC career as a data analyst where I will run daily and monthly reports. But over time, I get very interested in the data technologies and become more expert on the data warehouse environments. I have been in data management for the last 20 years. I had an opportunity to work with four companies, Fortune 500 companies like retail space and finance, marketing, healthcare, big

before I transitioned to the hospitality environment. So this diverse industries gave me the broad perspective how the data is actually drive the business transformation. So when I joined Hyatt, it was a significant time for Hyatt. It was transitioning the IT operations back in-house.

from, you know, outsourced environment. So one of my major projects was building out data warehouse, the developing and building the enterprise data warehouse for company. So which in time, it become a foundation for the highest data strategy. Another project I had, the master data management, which also was streamlining the

the centralized key information for the guest data. So about eight years ago, I had data operations expanded. We recognized that we need to build a scalable environment and I was asked to build out the analytics platform on a cloud. So that's how I get into the AI ML space. And I was supporting the data science team. And after a couple of years, this project set basically

platform for the AI, artificial intelligence, and now gen-AI driven innovations for the Hyatt.

I'm just super curious because I haven't really interviewed anybody that's on the hospitality side. When you're talking about like data analysis and how you all are using AI, like how are you using AI at Hyatt? Like is it like guest information or like logistics or like can you give audiences a sense of like kind of how that works? Right now we are the Hyatt personalization engine. Basically, we provide the personalization for the guests.

It is giving them their best fit hotel stays and, you know, marketing basically channels, sending the emails or providing them on a high loyalty site for the specific guest preferred selection of the hotels.

Oh, excellent. Excellent. And how has generative AI specifically enhanced customer engagement in hospitality from your point of view? Generative AI has tremendous potential for transforming the customer engagement in the hospitality. It could be not just transactional, but also personalized and intuitive.

At the hotels, there's thousands of guests check in every day and they are with their unique experiences, unique expectations and their travel habits. So the challenges and also the opportunity that when you're using, you know, you can use AI to understand and anticipate their needs and enhance their journeys. That is the key potential at the hospitality right now. At Hyatt, we have like 1300 properties worldwide.

So similarly with any other hospitality that our guests, you know, every one of them very unique.

So we are utilizing AI to give them the seamless, highly personalized experience at scale. Yeah, it seems really interesting because when you really step back, even just looking at one hotel, right? There's a lot of ins and outs, a lot of people doing a lot of things all hours of the day, right? And even from planning the trip to actually when you get there and all of that too. So I'd imagine it's

a ton of data to analyze. Is that, are you looking at it from the whole journey for the customer or are you all attacking it kind of like looking at like, okay, we're going to focus on, you know, the booking experience and then, you know, the actual visit or is it, how holistic is the approach? And,

At this point, of course, we personalize pre-arrival, but the potential is you understand that potential is the whole guest journey. So you can personalize guest engagements throughout the journey for the guests. So that's the future we are looking for. And we're actively exploring those enhancements for the customer journey. I'd imagine, too, that, you know, there's a lot of like,

person-to-person engagement and hospitality, right? Where are you having to work too with like the people on staff or at least in some kind of focus group type of way to like make sure that you're not losing that person? Like the personalization on the data side is one thing, right? But then like you're also dealing with person-to-person interaction at the hotel. Like how is that? I'm seeing that with the staff. Yeah, we...

But guided by the principle of the, you know, we care for people so they can be at their best, we are providing the one-on-one interactions at the hotels. We are planning to utilize the robots at the hotels, but the hospitality, it's core, it's a people business. So we see the artificial intelligence is helping to enrich the guest experience, not replace the guest engagement.

Yeah. And I guess what I'm kind of also kind of getting at too is like, are the staff having to kind of learn how to use the AI or is it all kind of a system that they're interacting with too? Like, because I know I talk to people that are working for other, you know, corporate environments and they're like, we have to go instruct them on a whole bunch of different types of operational security things. Like don't give away private data and all these things. Like

hospitality is so different, right? Because you've got staff that are, might not be as technical or might be real people person, right? Like, like how is it in that training environment, I guess, with the staff? Hyatt is actually very cautious about the personal information. So we protect the guest information truly. So our models and also the, our guest data never gets into the models and they are anonymized and we don't use the personal data. All the

All the AI is, it's essential, right? It's not send it out to the...

Hotel personnel doesn't use the AI information. They just get the information that the specific person will need specific care at the hotel. Interesting. Interesting. How is it like fostering kind of a culture of innovation with your teams while you're managing these complexities in these environments? I keep getting back to this just thoughts of like just making sure the services are running on time, right? Like and that people when you add the personalization to it just seems like a pretty dynamic process.

Are you all encouraging all the staff to kind of dig into this too? Like how is that environment with your team? At Hyatt, we work to unlock the new possibilities. We are fostering the open mindset. So we define the clear outcomes and, you know, embrace the agile ways of working.

At Hyatt, this is one of the Hyatt ways of working, actually. It was even branded for us. So we have a fast-paced, cross-functional teams, and we are dedicated to, you know, continuous experimentation and learning at our work.

So we are also cultivating the open mindset at Hyatt. So we are prioritizing the creating the safe space for our team members to express ideas and explore new possibilities. So in my team, I actually provide my team with the learning opportunities. So because...

Learning opportunities, it's investment in our people and also that it empowers the future projects, right? So it's a kind of win-win situation.

We also are building the data-driven culture. We are building out this data platform and providing the business users the data that they need to make the decisions. Also creating the data-driven culture, so transparency and also encouraging the analytical mindset for the people. In today's world, it's very fast-paced technology and everything is changing.

And the company needs to learn how to navigate the rapid changes in technology and business. At Hyatt, we continuously reinvent ourselves, stay ahead of the industry and the technology trends and advancements. We are cultivating the adaptable culture so we can sustain the growth for the company.

That's fantastic. And have you seen, I know a lot of this is relatively still kind of finding fit, right, with these things, but have you seen any really cool ideas or initiatives kind of come out of that where you give people some room, like you were saying, to kind of explore and try different things out?

So in the technology world that we were able to, for example, right now we are in a good position with our data platform. We were able to transition to the scalable cloud-based platform that can actually, you know, fuel the AI ML projects.

So we are working. I'm not at liberty to say at this point we are working on multiple projects to utilize our data to provide a different kind of, you know, enhancements in our business. Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say, I mean, we were talking a little bit earlier about personalization right on that side. But have you all found some good efficiency wins, too, from applying AI at Hyatt?

One way of personalization brought the efficiency that we can actually market to the right content, to the right people, right customers, and we can do it at scale. So, and similarly, other

type of personalization in the customer journey can be done at scale with utilizing the AI. So that's efficiency, right? So you are not utilizing multiple different tools for enhancing the engagement from the customers. The really interesting point too, like one thing that comes to mind, and I'm not sure if you all have thought about this, but I've traveled internationally quite a bit and being somebody that doesn't speak a lot of languages in a foreign country too, I'd imagine things like

like even things like translating things in the room or that part of the customer experience is something where it seems like AI could be a really helpful tool as somebody that goes on international trips occasionally and doesn't always speak the language, but finds themselves kind of confused sometimes in the room. Every company is utilizing the AI for enhancements in their interactions with the customers. It could be a hospitality or it could be a retail space. Also, every company now

trying to get the value out of the AI.

So at the hotel, it could be personalization, personalization journey. It could be also, you know, content curation and also the translations and helping customers at the help desk to translate and, like you said, provide them the information that they need in a native language of the country. And also that, imagine that you come to the hotel, you know, the beautiful hotel, and you walk into the room

As soon as you check in, you receive your personalized message on the phone, your dinner recommendations or the restaurant that perfectly matches to your preferences and or where you can go the next day to explore the city. So all those recommendations can be done at the check-in so you don't have to search for your preferences or your preferences.

preferred restaurant or the places to go. This is the ways of you can enhance the customer journey. No, that's fantastic. I mean, that sounds like those are all things that would be great additions, you know, to that experience. And sometimes too, you know, people are, they might be a little shy or something like

that, you know, and having that kind of personalization ready-made for them might be nice. When you look at your team, I love the audience to learn a little bit around like how it's practically being used, right? Are you kind of gathering different people to build that architecture basically that the data science team can work in? Is that how your team is operating? Yeah.

At Hyatt, we do have a part-oriented development teams that we get together and define what the business problem we are solving. And from that, we start designing. And my team is architectural design for data architecture and the solution architecture for all the products.

At Hyatt, data space, data product teams, data science, also the data architecture, data engineering, we all together work on the solutioning for the products. So it could be AI, it could be just the data product, it could be any type of application that we do visualization for our business partners. That all comes out from the pod-oriented teams.

My team does architectural design and then implementation of the pipelines. Like I said, again, it could be data pipelines or they could be AML, artificial intelligence, or the machine learning pipelines. Interesting. And it's like a lot of different inputs, right? A lot of different inputs, yeah. Very complex. Yeah.

What are some of the challenges you face? Challenges could be the not defined vision. If there is no vision, it could be difficult to deliver what the business wants. Because of that, we also include in our conversations business partners. So that part-oriented development is we include also business partners that align with their business goals.

Again, if you don't define what you're looking for, you may not get there. Yes. So and also the issues could be when the scope changes. Of course, it takes longer time to deliver.

I'd imagine, yeah, I'd imagine that's got to be pretty tricky. Like you said, the space moves so fast too. And you've got business partners getting involved and, you know, priorities and shifting things, right? And it's a lot of complexity. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Are there any resources or things you suggest they check out if they're learning to get into kind of this data architecture, like side of the world?

Of course, there's lots of websites for the learnings like Udacity or the Coursera or any kind of the learning sites even from those on the cloud providers, Google, the AWS, the Azure can give you a start. And you can also read up the books and follow the leaders in the field. That's how I keep my technical expertise checked.

And also I provide my team with the time and also ability to learn more and keep up with the changing technologies. And are there any pointers for somebody that might be interested in working for Hyatt in this area? And what do you think sets Hyatt apart from other competitors in the hospitality space on this front? And to work at Hyatt, you have to be very open-minded and keep learning and need to have a growth mindset.

That's one of the, I wouldn't say it's a requirement, but it's a kind of, in these times, you really need to keep learning. So, and growth is a kind of becomes a necessity, I would say.

Understand the business, one other side of it. So because we are hospitality, like I said, we are very people-centric. So that will help to understand the customers, understand their wants or what they don't want. That will help to get into the roles.

Interesting. That's great. And for people that might want to follow your work or get in touch or follow along with what you're doing, where can they find you online? Available on LinkedIn. That's a single social site I think I keep going back to. Otherwise, I don't have time. Understood.

Obviously a lot going on. We'll be sure to include a link in the bio for folks that want to reach out. And Roshana, it's been really, really gracious for you to give us your time today and really appreciate you coming on. And I'm sure the audience learned a lot today. So thanks again for making it out today. And we'd love to have you back to check back in on how things are going in the future. Thank you so much, Luke. Thanks for inviting me. And it was really nice spending time with you. Likewise. Likewise. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

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