Hospitality rewired: the strategic advantage of intelligent email management

Hospitality managers constantly juggle an endless email inbox alongside immediate guest needs, leading to fractured attention and cognitive overload. This challenge emerged when HosByte: Smart Omnichannel Sales in the Hospitality Sector project’s actors participated in AI-Skaalaajat seminars — a multidisciplinary initiative helping SMEs scale artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities into practical applications.

In an industry where time is a precious resource and attention can be easily diverted by routine administrative tasks AI provides a valuable strategic advantage. By automating low-value processes, staff can redirect their focus toward high-impact operations and enhanced guest experiences — where human connection truly matters.

Delete, delegate, respond, defer, do

Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero framework (2007) was originally designed to cultivate human discipline and workflow awareness. Mann identifies five core actions as essential to maintaining a streamlined inbox: delete, delegate, respond, defer, and do. Today, AI presents an opportunity to elevate these principles through intelligent systems that support operational efficiency.

When hospitality professionals attended the first AI-Skaalaajat co-development seminar, inbox management emerged as a critical pain point. HosByte tested four AI email platforms — Google’s Gemini with Gmail, Microsoft Copilot with Outlook, Superhuman, and Spark Mail AI — with Helsinki professionals, then presented findings at subsequent sessions.

• Delete: AI detects and removes common messages by learning from user behavior. Google’s Gemini AI can categorize emails into tabs, automatically filtering certain types, turning manual cleaning into automated background processing.
• Delegate: AI quickly routes inquiries to the right person or system, recognising terms like logistics or HR. Microsoft Copilot can help in analysing messages in Outlook for keywords like ‘invoice’, ‘schedule’, or ‘maintenance’ and suggest recipients, helping front desk staff focus on guest needs.
• Respond: AI tools, such as Superhuman, generate replies by learning tone and style. It summarises threads and auto-drafts responses. It handles routine confirmations well but struggles with nuanced messages. Human oversight remains essential, but time savings prove significant.
• Defer: AI resurfaces postponed emails at optimal moments. Spark Mail AI tracks work patterns and resurfaces messages strategically — a staffing question appears when the weekly schedule is typically reviewed.
• Do: Google Gemini identifies phrases like approval requests or deadlines, creating reminders and making actions trackable, transforming ‘do now’ into systematic task execution.

AI supports a sixth action: detect

Phishing, attackers impersonating trusted sources, has become increasingly difficult to detect, often resulting in identity theft and financial loss (Jayaprakash et al. 2024). Traditional red flags are increasingly obscured by generative AI producing convincing content (Schmitt & Flechais 2024). Research advocates combining machine learning with human training (Mithün et al. 2024).

Through HosByte testing presented at AI-Skaalaajat sessions, we found that AI excels at identifying known phishing patterns but struggles with highly personalised attacks that mimic legitimate communications. Human judgment remains essential, particularly in hospitality, where guest trust is paramount.

From co-development to practical application

The AI-Skaalaajat co-development approach proved valuable. From initial seminar discussions through testing to sharing findings, HosByte identified role-specific preferences: front desk staff valued Superhuman’s rapid drafting, and managers preferred Google’s Gemini for calendar integration.

Successful implementations combined AI automation with clear human oversight protocols. Hotels achieving the greatest gains approach AI as an operational enhancement rather than a replacement, establishing guidelines for which email types AI can handle and which require personal review.

AI aids thread detection and enhances Mann’s email optimisation strategy, saving time and providing operational benefits in hospitality. However, using AI for email management has risks. In our next Hospitality rewired article, we will explore the darker side of intelligent email tools, helping hospitality companies weigh their pros and cons.

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