How AI is reshaping planning and guest engagement

Personalization in hospitality is entering a new era.

For years, the conversation largely lived in marketing, focused on how hotels tailor messaging, target offers, and segment audiences. But as AI capabilities mature, personalization is shifting into something far more foundational: a real-time operating model that influences how hotels plan, sell, and serve across the entire guest journey.

In 2026, the most competitive hotels will not be the ones running the most campaigns. They will be the ones delivering the most consistent relevance, quietly, continuously, and at scale.

With insights from Blastness, IRIS and Plusgrade, this article explores what is changing, where AI is already creating measurable impact, and what mindset shift hoteliers still need to make to unlock the full value of AI-powered personalization.

What you’ll take away

By the end of this article, you’ll understand:

Why AI personalization is moving beyond marketing and into operations, planning, and revenue strategy
Where hotels are already seeing measurable impact across experience and commercial performance
Why context-driven personalization will outperform deeper profiling in 2026
What is holding hotels back from consistent execution
A simple framework to operationalize personalization across touchpoints

Personalization beyond marketing: AI now works across the entire guest journey

AI is moving personalization from a marketing tactic to a capability that supports the full guest experience.

Instead of pushing static offers to broad segments, hotels can now respond in real time to what guests are actually doing, not just who they are. Behavior, context, timing, and demand signals are increasingly shaping what a guest sees, what they are offered, and how much control they have over their stay.

As Plusgrade explains, this shift enables hotels to surface the right option at the right moment, whether that is a room upgrade, late checkout, or a more flexible experience that allows guests to choose the room features that matter most to them.

Personalization becomes less about what hotels promote and more about how they adapt.

As Erik Tenegen, President, Hospitality Upselling at Plusgrade, explains:
“AI is moving personalization from a marketing tactic to a capability that works across the entire guest journey. The shift isn’t just about adopting AI - it’s about trusting systems that learn and adjust continuously, based on guest intent and market context.”

Blastness reinforces that this shift is also transforming the earliest stage of the journey: the moment a guest begins exploring a hotel brand online. Personalization is no longer limited to offers and post-booking touchpoints. It is increasingly shaping the direct booking experience itself, turning browsing into a more guided, contextual decision process.

Where AI is already delivering impact: experience and revenue, side by side

The strongest AI personalization strategies are no longer confined to a single touchpoint. They show up in the moments that matter, from the booking journey to on-property decisions, and they do so in ways that feel seamless, relevant, and useful.

1) On-property personalization that feels intuitive, not intrusive (IRIS)

IRIS has launched Related Items on the Cart Page, a feature within its F&B mobile ordering platform designed to increase guest spend through seamless, AI-driven upselling.

The system analyzes a guest’s cart in real time and recommends relevant complementary items, from wine pairings and desserts to popular sides and signature upgrades. It is designed to enhance the order experience while generating incremental revenue for the hotel.

Whether it is truffle fries alongside a burger, or a fresh juice or pastry with breakfast, the logic is grounded in product relationships and context, optimizing each interaction for both revenue uplift and guest satisfaction.

Why this matters is simple:

Boosts guest spend: Upsells increase F&B revenue without any manual input from staff
Enhances guest experience: Suggestions are relevant, timely, and genuinely useful
No additional resources: The upselling happens automatically without the need for staff prompts

2) Guest intent meets commercial strategy (Plusgrade)

Plusgrade frames AI personalization as a shift from static offers to real-time decisioning.

By analyzing booking behavior, stay context, and demand signals, AI can surface the most relevant offer at the most relevant time. And importantly, this does not replace revenue management, it complements it.

The Revenue Management System focuses on market conditions, while AI focuses on guest intent. Together, they help hotels capture more total value from each stay.

Because these systems learn over time, they improve continuously. Offers that convert rise to the top, while lower-performing options fade away. Guests see better choices, and hotels gain stronger incremental revenue with less manual effort.

At its best, AI personalization becomes infrastructure: a system that learns, adapts, and delivers.

3) Direct booking is becoming conversational (Blastness)

But AI-driven relevance is not only showing up after booking. Blastness highlights that hotels are now entering a new phase where personalization influences conversion before a guest ever commits.

AI is pushing hotel personalization far beyond targeted campaigns or segmented offers. It is reshaping the entire direct booking experience and the way guests interact with a brand from the very first touchpoint.

In 2026, conversational AI will become a strategic layer of the purchasing journey, not just an automated support tool. It will sit at the core of the interaction between hotels and potential guests, actively influencing their choices in real time.

As Piergiorgio Schirru, Executive Vice President, Blastness, explains:
“In 2026, conversational AI will become a strategic layer of the purchasing journey, not just an automated support tool. It will sit at the core of the interaction between hotels and potential guests, actively influencing their choices in real time.”

Rather than presenting static content or generic paths, AI will interpret intent, preferences, and behavior as they emerge, guiding the decision-making process step by step.

It’s no longer a matter of adding intelligent features, but of rethinking direct sales through a new framework that transforms the booking journey into an adaptive, intuitive, and contextual experience, mirroring the logic of a human conversation.

Hotels investing in this direction will not only increase conversion, but also regain control, margin, and direct customer relationships.

The new differentiator: context-driven personalization

As the industry moves into 2026, the most effective personalization will not be defined by how deeply a hotel can profile a guest.

Instead, it will be defined by how well a hotel can respond to context.

This includes signals such as:

booking behavior and stay patterns
timing and demand shifts
on-property behavior and service preferences
real-time actions like cart selection, browsing, or interaction history
external signals that shape intent in the moment

IRIS is already exploring this next phase of evolution through predictive analytics and expanded accessibility.

In the words of Johan Ohlin, Chief Technology Officer, IRIS Software Systems:
“AI will unquestionably shape the future, and importantly for hotels using mobile ordering, guests are already comfortable adopting more digital touchpoints throughout their stay.
In terms of the next phase of evolution, guest expectations around personalization in particular are increasing all the time. We are focused on how we can apply that data to qualify and enhance a more automated and equally personalized approach for the guest. For example, enabling blind customers to dictate an F&B order so that AI can automatically process menu upsell recommendations.

From a predictive analytics perspective, applying weather data on the back end to influence menu suggestions and prompts is another active area. For instance, if a cold snap is forecast, the system can trigger rules that promote hot drink recommendations to help hotels maximize seasonal upsell opportunities.”

This is exactly where AI-powered personalization becomes strategic, not by being louder or more complex, but by being more relevant in the right moment, for the right reason.

The execution gap: why insight still isn’t becoming consistent engagement

Despite the progress, many hotels still struggle to turn AI insight into consistent guest engagement.

The challenge is not always data. In many cases, hotels already have signals available, but personalization remains fragmented, inconsistent, or overly manual.

In practice, guests do not experience personalization as a strategy. They experience it as consistency, or they notice when it disappears.

Common barriers include:

disconnected systems across the guest journey
personalization that appears in one channel but disappears in another
teams treating AI as a feature, rather than a repeatable operating model
internal hesitation around automation, governance, and control
fear of crossing the line into intrusive experiences

Plusgrade highlights a key truth: AI does not need to be hyper-personal to be effective.

When personalization is contextual and cohort-based, it feels useful, like getting better choices at the right time, not like being tracked. This is where trust starts to form, both internally and with guests.

Blastness adds that this fragmentation is especially visible in direct booking journeys. Hotels may introduce a chatbot, improve content, or optimize a booking engine, but without continuity across the funnel, the experience remains disjointed, and personalization loses its impact.

And it is why the 2026 conversation is shifting from capability to mindset.

The 2026 mindset shift: from adoption to trust

The shift for 2026 is not simply about implementing AI. It is about trusting it.

Too often, personalization is still treated as something static, a set of pre-defined offers, manually configured, reviewed, and updated. But the strongest performance comes from systems that learn and adjust continuously, based on guest behavior and market context.

Plusgrade’s view is clear: these tools should work hand in hand with the RMS. Market demand sets the baseline. Guest intent helps hotels go beyond it.

Just as importantly, AI should be seen as a quiet operator.

The most effective systems work behind the scenes, testing, optimizing, and making micro-decisions continuously so teams can focus on brand, strategy, and the bigger picture.

This is where AI-powered personalization becomes a driver of performance, not a manual task.

And it is also where many hotels still have room to evolve: moving from using AI to building the confidence and operating model required to let it run.

Looking ahead to 2026, Blastness emphasizes that the mindset shift is also about moving beyond isolated AI tools toward a fully integrated conversational ecosystem.

As Schirru adds:
“The key mindset shift is moving from isolated AI tools to a fully integrated conversational ecosystem. True conversational selling requires continuity, coherence, and a shared data foundation across every touchpoint in the funnel.”

AI-powered personalization can no longer be treated as an add-on, whether that’s a chatbot, a smart booking engine, or a single intelligent feature. Without integration, personalization remains fragmented and ineffective.

The strategy must be built around the three core stages of the modern digital journey: inspire, engage, convert.

In the inspire phase, hotels need to attract users through relevant content and strong, meaningful touchpoints. In the engage phase, technology must enable real dialogue, listening, understanding intent, and responding to guests’ needs in real time. Finally, in the convert phase, the booking engine must be highly optimized and supported by tools that reinforce confidence and guide decision-making.

Ultimately, the shift is from “using AI” to creating a conversational experience, one that turns every interaction into a direct booking opportunity.

What good looks like in 2026: a practical personalization framework

For hoteliers planning ahead, the goal is not to add more tools. It is to build a model that delivers consistent relevance without increasing complexity.

A simple way to frame this is:

Signals to decisions to delivery

Signals
What the hotel learns in real time: behavior, intent, context, demand, timing, environment.

Decisions
What changes based on those signals: the offer, the recommendation, the service prompt, the experience option.

Delivery
How it shows up consistently: across guest touchpoints, channels, and on-property interactions, without operational friction.

This framework applies across use cases:

IRIS uses real-time cart signals to recommend relevant add-ons that enhance the guest experience and increase spend.
Plusgrade uses guest intent signals to surface upgrades and value-based offers at the right time, aligned with revenue strategy.
Blastness applies conversational signals to guide the booking journey in real time, turning direct channels into adaptive conversion pathways.

In all cases, the goal is the same: personalization that works continuously, feels natural to the guest, and drives measurable performance.

Key takeaways: the strategic shifts hotels should prioritize now

As hotels refine their 2026 plans, AI-powered personalization is no longer a future concept. It is already shaping how guest engagement and commercial performance evolve.

The key shifts to prioritize:

AI personalization is moving beyond marketing into planning, operations, and revenue strategy
The most effective personalization is contextual, not invasive
AI works best when aligned with RMS strategy, combining market conditions with guest intent
Systems that learn continuously will outperform one-off, manual personalization efforts
The biggest unlock in 2026 is trust: letting AI optimize quietly while teams focus on strategy
Conversational AI will increasingly influence direct booking performance, turning browsing into guided decision-making

Looking ahead: personalization as infrastructure

The next phase of AI-powered personalization will not be defined by novelty. It will be defined by consistency.

Hotels that treat personalization as infrastructure, a system that learns, adapts, and supports decision-making across the guest journey, will be best positioned to deliver both better experiences and stronger commercial outcomes in 2026.

AI-powered personalization: Strategic shifts for 2026