Cloudbeds Launches Lab to Drive Innovation

Originally published here at PhocusWire

Hospitality management technology provider Cloudbeds has unveiled a lab initiative, Cloudbeds Labs, which aims to accelerate the travel industry’s transition to artificial intelligence (AI)-based operations.

“With Cloudbeds Labs, we recognize that behind every data point is a human experience,” Adam Harris, co-founder and CEO of Cloudbeds, said in a release. “Our AI solutions transform this human-centered data into tools that not only address critical pain points like high OTA [online travel agency] commissions and labor costs but also free hospitality staff to focus on what technology cannot replicate—genuine human connections with guests.”

The division has two new solutions, Signals and Engage, which are built on Cloudbeds Intelligence—the company's "smart hospitality engine" that launched in October. Cloudbeds Labs will help build a “unified AI layer,” according to the company.

“Both of these tools are available to any hotel anywhere in the world,” Harris said in an interview with PhocusWire. “We designed them as standalone platforms that we also are leveraging internally. So these will be our first products that will not require Cloudbeds core as part of their use case.”

Harris continued: “We designed this to be enterprise ready … There's data silos built in. So, a group of hotels that are using a competitive suite of tools don't need to feel concerned that data can be shared in inappropriate ways.”

Richard Castle, chief operations officer and co-founder of Cloudbeds, said the innovations address missed revenue opportunities and efficiency opportunities.

“Signals helps properties drive more direct bookings at higher rates, while Engage turns every guest call into an opportunity to book, upsell, or serve—without additional headcount,” Castle said in a release. “These are the first of many intelligent systems we’re launching to help hoteliers scale smarter and operate more profitably.”

Signals is an AI platform meant to optimize revenue and marketing, and it's already live in beta and in use by select hoteliers.

The solution uses causal machine learning, looking for cause and effect relationships of various permutations of data and running them through varying scenarios to determine the best outcome statistically, based on a competent score, Harris said.

Signals provides actionable insights instead of spotting patterns the way traditional revenue management systems and forecasting tools often do, Cloudbeds said. Signals can help forecast demand up to 180 days in advance, receive AI-driven recommendations, automate email campaigns and monitor and optimize portfolios in real-time, it said.

Meanwhile, Engage, meant for direct traveler engagement, launched today.

“Engage is a first-generation AI voice engine that is designed to tackle one of the biggest problems that hotels are facing right now,” Harris said. “That’s … the front desk and/or reservationists, rising cost of labor, the fact that COVID effects still have the halo over people coming back to the industry, recessionary tales that we were seeing as a byproduct of tariffs.”

Trained on real-time property management system information, Engage interacts with customers in natural language. Cloudbeds said it can conduct “human-like” conversations in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week and take action for guests to improve traveler satisfaction and reduce front-desk workload.

While two solutions are ready to be made public, Harris sees Cloudbeds Labs as a sandbox to play in as it pushes industry innovation.

“I think it's going to keep getting more exciting,” Harris said. “I hope we have a lot of success in what we create with Cloudbeds Labs. At the same time, I also hope we fail on some of those experiments.”

Harris said he wants to be on the “cutting edge” or “bleeding edge” of technology, he said, quoting one of his team members. “The point here is we need more innovation in this industry.”