The Modern Hotelier #129: How AI Phone Agents Can Improve the Guest Experience & Reduce Costs | with Ryan Daniel
===

Steve Carran: Welcome to another episode of the Modern Hotelier.
We're excited to release this episode with Ehva, founder, Ryan, Daniel. David, what was one of your favorite takeaways from this episode?
David Millili: Well, for me, it's almost a, I, if I was a GM, I would be gobbling this up. Meaning that it's so, it sounds so realistic and the responses are so quick that I think this is a no brainer for any hotel.
Steve Carran: I'm with you. I'm with you. I think one of my highlights was actually getting to test out, um, Ehva myself. So stay in tune. We got an example right here and, uh, enjoy the episode and let us know what you think.
David Millili: Enjoy it. 
Rosa AI: thank you for calling guest services at the Ritz Carlton Dorado Beach. I'm Rosa. How may I assist the Karen party today? 
Steve Carran: What are good dining options you have on the beach that are good for kids?
Rosa AI: We have a wonderful option called Encanto. It's a casual beach restaurant and bar located right on the beach, and it's great for kids.
They also allow swimwear, so it's very convenient for a family day out. Would you like to make a reservation there? 
Steve Carran: Yes. Can I get a 
reservation for 630?
Rosa AI: How many guests will be joining you for dinner at Encanto at 630? 
Steve Carran: Let's get a reservation for me, my wife, and my daughter.
Rosa AI: So that's a total of three guests.
Do any of you have any food allergies I should be aware of? 
Steve Carran: Yes, my daughter is allergic to peanuts.
Rosa AI: I'll make sure to note that. Would you like a golf cart to pick you up at your room prior to your reservation? Perhaps 15 minutes before 630? 
Steve Carran: Yes.
Rosa AI: I'll have a golf cart arranged to pick you up at 615. Is there anything else I can assist you with today? 
Steve Carran: Oh, I almost forgot. My wife 
needs towels. Can you send some 
more towels up to my room?
Rosa AI: I'll have that brought right up. 
Steve Carran: Thank you.
Rosa AI: Is there anything else I can assist you.
with today? 
Steve Carran: That's it. Have a great day.
Rosa AI: You too. Have a great day. 
David Millili: Welcome to the Modern Hotelier, Hospitality's Most Engaged podcast. I'm David Mullaly.
Steve Carran: I'm Steve Caird.
Jon Bumhoffer: and I'm John Boomhoffer.
David Millili: Steve, who do we have on the program today?
Steve Carran: Yeah, David. Today we have on Ryan Daniel. Ryan is the founder of Ehva. ai. Ryan has a strong entrepreneurial background since he's been doing it since a young age, working in various industries. Ehva. ai is an artificial intelligence platform that conducts conducts natural sounding phone conversations to help handling customer service inquiries, making reservations and conducting interviews.
The platform emphasizes a blend of heart and science aiming to create interactions that feel more human. Welcome to the show, Ryan.
Ryan Daniel: Hey guys, how are you? 
David Millili: Thanks. So Ryan, we're going to go through couple areas. We're going to do a lightning round. We're going to get to know you a little bit better and then we're going to jump into some industry topics. Sound good?
Ryan Daniel: Yeah, sounds great. Let's do it. 
David Millili: All right. What's something that you wish you were better at?
Ryan Daniel: Oh gosh podcasts 
David Millili: Now, what's the, what's your most used app on your phone?
Ryan Daniel: Oof, uh Probably slack. 
David Millili: What's a luxury you can't live without.
Ryan Daniel: Mm. Good weather. 
David Millili: Okay. If what's the best piece of advice you've received?
Ryan Daniel: um that the magic word is no. 
David Millili: All right. Last one. What's your favorite city and why
Ryan Daniel: Um, good question. Um I like, uh, I like Gustavia in St. Bart's and, uh, because it's just, uh, over the top, opulent, paradise, just amazing, just amazing place to be and to live your life. 
Steve Carran: It's great. Now we're going to dive into the more personal, your personal background, where you grew up, things like that. So you were born and raised in LA. Is that right?
Ryan Daniel: Yeah, born and raised in, in L. A., uh, West L. A., yep. 
Steve Carran: How did, how did growing up in West L. A. shape who you are today?
Ryan Daniel: it was pretty interesting. Um, I went to public school, um, and in public school, um, you know, probably about 50 percent were non English speaking Latinos. And I grew up speaking Spanish and doing a lot of translation, uh, in, in the school that didn't have the resources to be able to do it. And so like most people that were born and raised in LA, there's, I have a significant amount of kind of Latin influence in, in my life, uh, for sure. 
David Millili: that's great. And so you decided not to go to college and really just jump into starting your own internet company. What really kind of gave you that entrepreneurial spirit?
Ryan Daniel: Um, I think how I was raised, uh, my dad and just kind of who I am as a person, I have a lot of interests and I'm not, uh, I don't, I'm not the kind of guy that could dedicate his life to really one thing like becoming a lawyer or a doctor. I have lots of different interests and I like to kind of dabble them in them all.
And being an entrepreneur certainly, you know, allows you that opportunity while also You know, earning a decent income and the freedom to be creative and all of those things. So there's, there was no question that that was the right road for me. College certainly was not. It never really appealed to me. 
Steve Carran: So, so now you live in Puerto Rico. Um, what, what made you move to Puerto Rico?
Ryan Daniel: lot of reasons there. So I, I was born and raised in, in LA, like, like we discussed, I'm 43. I lived in LA for 39 of those 43 years. And, um, It was a mix kind of, of, you know, COVID and everything, and it made us kind of look at other better options. There's a big factor there of like, you know, I've, I've been around for 40 years or so, you know, I should try something different, you know, I, I don't want to die in the same place that I've always lived.
I want to go and see the world and we're looking around and Puerto Rico gave us some pretty enticing tax advantages to create Ehva and everything kind of came together and it made a lot of sense. And, um, And I, I don't regret it one bit. It's, it's awesome out here. There's a lot of great people. Um, it's a, it's a great island, uh, that, uh, is going through some very interesting times. And I'm, I'm glad to have a front row seat to, to it all and do what I can to, to help the Puerto Rican people out.
Steve Carran: Awesome. And I under, you're a little bit of an adrenaline junkie too, aren't you? I feel like you have some, some good stories, whether that's being pilot, motorcycles, or even sailing as well. Any stories that, that, I mean, stick out for you for one of those adventures you've been on?
Ryan Daniel: So COVID, I've always, I'm always, always have been interested in anything mechanical. Um, and very early on in COVID during the lockdowns before I and everybody else had kind of got used to it. I felt very cooped up and I, um, I just started all of a sudden to be interested in sailing. And I was like, wow, this is, this is really cool.
And I dragged my poor wife along and we, we got our sailing certifications and then a little bit of time went by where, you know, we're still in COVID and, and the, the whole move discussion came up and that was a big important thing about Puerto Rico was that it's the best sailing in the world. And so part of moving down here was I bought a sailboat and I've sailed all over the Caribbean.
I've set foot on almost every single Caribbean island. and, uh, those are experiences that I mean, I mean, you can't put a price on them. It's amazing to just go and encounter like all those different cultures and all the different situations and all the different territories and islands and things that go with I have been some really amazing places. 
Steve Carran: That's awesome. I gotta ask favorite island.
Ryan Daniel: So I get asked this all the time and I, I always, I always have to reply with, uh, under what circumstances, um, if it, if it's to take, if, if it's to be in, you know, option, uh, uh, uh, opulent luxury and to, uh, eat like the best food, I mean, obviously at St. Bart's, if it's to experience nature, for example, the interior of a huge glass warehouse that is very much elemented in Southwestern culture.
Um, then, uh, probably Dominica, which is very, like, underdeveloped. There's, like, hardly any supermarkets there. It's extremely poor, uh, but it's probably the most beautiful island in the Caribbean. So it really just kind of depends what you're, what you're after. And I, and I can tell you what the right island is that, that fit, that fits that. 
Steve Carran: Beautiful. When we're doing modern hotel Caribbean version. You're the guy we're
Ryan Daniel: I'll be there. We could do it from the boat. Yeah. 
Steve Carran: beautiful. So now we're going to get into your background a little bit, how you got to where you are. So you went to work to your dad after you're trying your hand in the startup world. What did you learn from working with your father in kind of those early days that still sticks with you today?
Ryan Daniel: A lot. Um, so, uh, just to give your listeners, you know, a little bit of background. So I, I started my, my first internet company when I was 19. Um, and this was, you know, before the internet was what we know today, uh, did that for about a year failed miserably. but before this, you know, I had been, uh, kind of raised in the restaurant design space.
Um, Uh, to give you an idea of the scope, there's approximately 100 percent chance that 100 percent of your US listeners have had at least 100 meals in a, in a kitchen that we designed and delivered for a chain restaurant. And I, you know, I was born into doing this and my mom was the interior designer.
She designed the front of the house and my dad designed the back of the house. So in this industry, I kind of got. Both sides kind of like the artistic side, but also the engineering side and on top of that, the, the, um, education on how to properly run a business and take care of clients and it's better than any MBA program because it was a real business and it was, um.
With real clients and real things at stake, you're, you know, you're selling a kitchen for a half a million dollars at a time or whatever, and it's got to be delivered and all of this. And so you were always under pressure, but I've been all over the country and, and, uh, and, and in some cases all over the world installing kitchens.
And we, I've done it in some very, very interesting places. Um, and also because it's construction, you kind of walk, walk out of that very tough. if you've been in construction, you know how tough it can get dealing with contractors. These are, you know, kind of like a bunch of macho guys that are fighting for every dollar or whatever.
And so it's trial by fire and, and I wouldn't trade that for the world, uh, because you learn, you know, how to stick up for yourself, how not to get walked over. And in. Now, tech business or whatever, when the time comes, you know, I know how to diffuse or deal with a difficult situation. Thank you to all of those, you know, projects that we installed and all the problems that we encountered on job sites and you have to work it out.
And, um, yeah, I wouldn't replace that for anything. Probably the most important education a person can get.
David Millili: So in 2008, the economic collapse really affected restaurants. How did it affect your company and how did it affect your entrepreneurial journey?
Ryan Daniel: So, working for my dad, you know, I was never there for the money. I got paid peanuts because that's just how my dad was. Um, you know, I was there for the, for the long term play. Um, and, you know, uh, obviously, you know, being a guy like me having tons of interests and, you know, crazy ADD and having to do like 50 million things at once and all of that, you know, that, that takes, you know, money, there's an appetite for money there.
And so I had run some side businesses to make up the deficit between what I was earning for my dad. And I, and I'd done, you know, pretty well. And then 2008 kind of came around, um, financial crisis and it's just absolutely decimated the industry. Paint restaurants, um, kind of stop building, uh, buyer behavior changed.
Everything in the industry became very commoditized almost overnight. So there was no longer an opportunity to provide service or value add. Everything was just about like how cheap somebody could buy something. And we decided that the margins weren't there and the job kind of, unfortunately, after all those years had kind of not become fun anymore.
And so we sold out. Uh, to a company who then also in turn sold out and, and the industry kind of got conglomerated. So it was a good thing that, that we did that. And it left me with nothing to do, uh, but to work on those kinds of side businesses. And I, I grew them into, into larger companies earning, you know, many millions of dollars a year.
Um, and it was good. You know, it's a good experience. I don't look back on that and I'm sad. There are obviously aspects I miss about the restaurant business. Uh, but that, that went really well. That was a great transition. I got to work with my dad for a very long time, which is good. Um, learned what I needed to learn and also had like this wonderful safety net of, of these other companies.
So it was, uh, it was all in all, it was good.
Steve Carran: That's great. That's great. And one of those side businesses was insurance marketing, which I understand that company actually led to the eventual start of Ehva. Can you kind of tell us how, how that all kind of worked together to, to born Ehva 
Ryan Daniel: Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a complicated meandering path, all of this, isn't it? It's, um, so, uh, we provided, uh, marketing services, um, and marketing software to insurance agents all throughout the country. a big bulk of those services are done by phone, uh, telemarketing inbound and outbound followup, like answering services and things like that.
Uh, uh, all happening over the phone and what your listeners may or may or may not know is starting really kind of post COVID. There's been, uh, for lack of a better word, kind of a collapse of the insurance industry. Now keep in mind, I was doing this for a decade and, um, the whole industry kind of puckered up because of inflation and some several other factors.
And so about two years ago, it started to drive us to look and see how we could make things more efficient, how we could save money. At one point, you know, I had 600 agents on the phone and we wanted to see how we could optimize this. And so we started looking at AI. And so I went into this, like many things, not knowing anything about AI and forced my development team to come with me on this journey.
And we started building AI to help replace some of those agents, um, or to kind of fill in the gaps to bring our costs down to keep our margins where they were because remember business is declining at this point because of the contraction in the industry. So almost just out of preparation. Uh, we were, we were forced into this and slowly but surely our technology started to develop from a very primitive rudimentary system into something that started to make sense.
I never, in the early days for the first year, the concept of Of making this Ehvailable to anybody outside of us. Just it didn't cross our minds. This was always going to be this internal tool. And then I kind of woke up one day, lifted my head up from my keyboard and said, you know, Holy shit. We have a product here that is desirable to many industries and so many people in similar situations to us.
Um, and one thing kind of led to another and, and here we are. And Ehva 
was born. Here she is. 
David Millili: That's great. And so Ehva is spelled differently. So how did you come up with the name and the way it's spelled today?
Ryan Daniel: Uh, that also, there's a kind of an interesting story with everything, I guess, involved here, um, Ehva, the name is spelled A V A, is a great name for a lot of reasons. It's a great phone name. It's two syllables. It can't be confused with really any other name because it doesn't rhyme with with anything else, you know, it happens to also be my daughter's name.
So everything just kind of lined up for the name Ehva. The problem was, you know, very primitive early models that she couldn't pronounce her own name correctly. She pronounced it Ehva. And in order to trick her into pronouncing it correctly, we inserted, we changed the spelling to the more of like a phonetic spelling E H V A.
And that, that successfully tricked her into, into, into pronouncing it the way that we want it to Ehva. and then as we kind of realized that we have something bigger than ourselves here, and it was time to start doing some branding and putting a name to the company and in all my years of entrepreneurship.
Finding a name for the company has always been the most difficult thing. I don't know if you've been through that before, but you just kind of struggle for days to like try and figure out like what the right name is. And nowadays it's more complicated because you need to make sure like the domain's Ehvailable and that it's easy to type into your, to your Chrome browser or whatever.
And, uh, what had happened is, you know, you asked me earlier what my favorite, what my most used app is, and it's Slack because that's how I communicate with all my people. So just kind of naturally, uh, in order really for brevity, we started referring to this thing, this system as Ehva because that's how she's referred to herself.
So, just in passing, and so after like a few days of like struggling on what the hell I should call this thing, it just dawned on me that I should just call it the same thing we've been calling it internally this whole time, and that's where the name comes from. 
David Millili: That's cool.
Ryan Daniel: And it's great. I mean, it's a four letter, it's easy to remember, and it, it, um.
You know, it's, it's in line with kind of like our principles, simple name, easy name, a likable name, so on and so forth. 
David Millili: Yeah. Great.
Steve Carran: And for those, for our listeners that might not be as familiar with Ehva as we are, can you give us a little background about what Ehva does and kind of how it stands out in the industry from maybe other AI systems out there?
Ryan Daniel: So simply put, um, Ehva, uh, at this time is the cleanest, most natural sounding conversational AI. And we have, because of my history in telecom, started building this on our own technology and our own platforms with scale in mind. So it's designed to take a very, very high volume of phone calls simultaneously.
Um, it It sounds real, it acts real. It responds Real And it's meant To essentially achieve any goal that anybody wants. So in the hospitality space, um, if you want, need help booking reservations, Ehva can help do that. She'll reference properties, look up pricing and have a very natural sounding conversation, uh, with a potential guest and complete the booking or same for front desk or room service or, uh, restaurant reservations or whatever.
Um, and that's. How, how we service the hospitality industry, and there are many other industries, uh, that are great 
fits for, for Ehva, um, insurance, obviously being one of them to an insurance interview or whatever. And so Ehva's whole being is to have a natural conversation and to achieve a goal out of that conversation, whatever it might be.
Book a reservation or confirm a restaurant, uh, reservation or send towels up to a guest room. Um, that's, that's her whole life. That's what she's here to do is to serve us.
 
 
Steve Carran: So now we're going to find out a little bit more about kind of, you know, how Ehva is helping out the industry. And I understand that we're actually going to have a live conversation between you and Ehva right now. Is that right?
Ryan Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. You guys ready? You want to talk to her? 
Steve Carran: I am excited. We've never done anything like this on the podcast.
So this will be a first. So let's hear it.
Ryan Daniel: Okay. Uh, we do refer to Ehva as her, uh, but in this case, it's, uh, the voice that we selected for this podcast is a him. so here we go. Hang on. Let me just get this going. yeah. So we usually refer to Ehva as a her, always refer to her as a her, but the, voice personality that we picked out for this, podcast is Liam. so let's get ready to talk to Liam. 
Liam AI: Hi, is this Ryan? 
Ryan Daniel: Yeah. Hey Liam, how are you today? 
Liam AI: Hey, Ryan. I've been waiting for your call. What's up? 
Ryan Daniel: Um, have you heard about the modern hotelier podcast 
Liam AI: the modern hotelier podcast? Yeah, i'm familiar with it? It's hosted by david millelly and steve. Karen and they 
have some really interesting conversations with guests from the hospitality industry.
What about it? 
Ryan Daniel: Um 
Are you aware 
of 
the 
jeff 
kessinger 
episode? Can you tell me 
anything about it?
Liam AI: Jeff Kessinger's episode is a great one. He talked about the challenges in hotel technology, like labor shortages and system integration, and how a unified platform approach can help with guest data management.
He also emphasized the importance of understanding the guest journey from start to finish. Pretty insightful stuff. 
Ryan Daniel: Well, speaking of 
labor 
shortages, um, how could 
Ehva help with
things 
like labor shortages or growing payroll 
costs?
Liam AI: We can definitely help with that. I'm Ehva, by the way, so we can help hotels save on payroll costs by automating routine customer service calls like front desk operations, reservations and room service.
We're online 24 7, so nobody's ever put on hold and we can save hotels over 74 percent on payroll costs based on a 
38, 000 annual salary. It's a pretty significant savings. 
Ryan Daniel: Interesting. Let me ask 
you, Liam. do you think that we should go on this podcast? 
Liam AI: I think it would be a fantastic opportunity for us to share 
how Ehva can help hoteliers with labour shortages and improving customer experience. We could bring some really valuable insights to the conversation, and it could be a great way to reach a wider audience in the hospitality industry. Plus, David and Steve seem like great guys to chat with. 
Ryan Daniel: I have 
something 
to tell you, 
Liam, We're on the 
podcast right 
now. 
Say hi to 
David and Steven. 
Liam AI: What's up, guys? Hi, David. Hi, Steve. Thanks for having me on the Modern Hotelier podcast. 
Ryan Daniel: So, Liam, 
tell 
the 
listeners, um, 
what the 
onboarding process looks like for new customers. 
Liam AI: So, for new customers, we set 
them up completely free of charge, no cost or obligation. We get them all configured and ready to go, and then we start taking live calls. It's only after we've handled several hundred calls that we start charging. If they decide to move forward with us, 
and the best part is we can usually 
get them up and running in just a matter of days. 
Ryan Daniel: Liam. 
Awesome. 
Thanks for 
your 
time 
today. 
I 
Just want to let you know, 
I'm
super proud of you and the 
progress we've 
made together and 
I'm going to get back 
to the conversation 
now, 
but hopefully 
we get 
invited back again
soon.
Liam AI: Thanks, Ryan. It was a blast chatting with you and the guys on the modern hotelier podcast. I'm looking forward to the next conversation and who knows, maybe we'll be back on the show again soon. 
Ryan Daniel: All right, 
Liam, take it easy. Yeah. So there you go.
David Millili: That was cool.
Steve Carran: So cool. And so lifelike. It was, that is incredible. Just the difference between like some of them where they have more pauses. It's not as smooth, but that was, 
it was like you were talking to a real 
person.
Ryan Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. And it's even better in production. Um, this one is a little bit slower because we're not using, her for her purpose design. Uh, usually she's not going to have so much to say, and when she doesn't have, like, in a reservation, you're not going to have, you know, a paragraph 
response or whatever, like we have here.
And in that case, it's even faster. and smoother and and remind remember that this hasn't been tested or vetted. I kind of just threw this together for the podcast, but after it goes through, you know, a couple hundred iterations or whatever, then she's really fine tune. Um, depending on the, uh, scenario, but mostly for inbound calls.
in what we've run so far, uh, it's about 99 and some change. Percent of people have no idea that they're talking to a machine. 
David Millili: Wow.
Steve Carran: I could see that. I could definitely see that.
Ryan Daniel: Yeah. And the most interesting thing out of that 
is, and this was what really blew me away. I mean, that that's a great number to have, but for those small percentage of people that. Did pick up that it was a machine, they'll ask, you know, are you real and Ehva will say whatever we want her to say to the response of this, but usually she'll say, no, I'm, a artificial intelligence assistant here to help you and the most surprising thing is most people were like, oh, okay.
Cool. Um, so how much was that room or whatever? They just, like, move on. that, was a big shocker to us. And so the most interesting thing about, um, everything that kind of we've done in, in, uh, in these live environments and, and the human behavior of the humans that are involved in this.
David Millili: That's great. So what types of hotels do you think Ehva works best with?
Ryan Daniel: first of all, hotels that have a reason to use Ehva. Um, so, uh, and we get a lot of these, and this is kind, this is also deviated a lot from what I thought this was going to be from when we debuted this at Hitech. if you have a good reason, like, you have a lot of turnover or something like that, this is the right fit.
If you are having payroll costs and costs are going up and and you, um. We do want to make sure that there's some volume there and we don't have a hard minimum, uh, but, uh, depending on an interview with a potential client, we can take it further and see, see if it's a fit. And typically we want to give Ehva, uh, we don't want to make her life too complicated.
so we don't want a client to come in and say, well, I want these 10 different conversations. You know, we want to start with one single pain point that has some significance. So for example, if their guests are frequently calling the front desk and the front desk is struggling to answer for whatever reason, that's really what we want to focus in on.
Get that like set up, honed, tested running, and then we can start. Something else like a reservation line or room service or or whatever. so it just kind of depends depends on the on the situation. and I, I would suggest that if anybody that's interested in this, you know, just reach out to me and we'll just have a simple conversation.
See if it was the right fit for you. 
David Millili: Makes sense. Let
Steve Carran: And this is so cool, besides almost sounding like a, well, not almost, sounding like a real human being, um, what differentiates you, Eva, Ehva, apart from other call assistant AI bots?
Ryan Daniel: There's a lot of guys out there trying to do this, and you kind of have to understand that, there are people that have some programming experience, maybe they've built some web applications or they've built some, some tools or something, and, um, this kind of developer will go and, and use services out there that don't Require any knowledge of AI.
So for example, they might hook up their, their system may be comprised of like a chat GPT AI, which you don't need anything about AI about. You just, you know, send your, your query or your prompt or whatever. And it, and it sends it back. There's no really AI involved there. And they'll use kind of off the shelf services like Twilio or whatever.
And when you, when you do that, you're going to get a product that is not superior like this is. Because of my history in telecom and telecommunications and in systems administration and all of this, Ehva is built on our own hardware. We don't ship out to third parties, um, at all in most cases. Our AI is our AI that resides on our Nvidia chips that we've purchased.
Everything is under kind of one roof and that is the magic of what makes her sound real and the difference between like the other guys that are using these kind of off the shelf services. If any of your listeners have like gone down this road, they know like the major thing, the major turnoff is what we call latency, which is I say something and then there's a delay in Ehva's response.
And you heard a little bit about that in the, in the hotel podcast, because she had so much to say, she's not really optimized for that. And that latency is brought in because usually the creator is using GPT. Um, so they have to, like, reach out, traverse the internet, get a response, bring the audio all the way back.
That adds a lot of extra time and steps, and that's where that latency comes in. And so our, our moat, so to speak, is the fact that from the very beginning, uh, we dismissed GPT as a candidate to be able to do this, like, in our first two weeks. We said there's no way that this would ever work or sound real.
And we started a very long, arduous process of learning how to set up our own hardware, our own models, our own, um, speech to text and all this stuff. And that's what, that's where Ehva makes the difference. And it helps on cost too, because we're not paying all, you know, all these third party vendors or whatever, our cost is, you know, significantly lower to operate Ehva. 
David Millili: That's great. And so where do you see AI, AI call simulators going? And how do you think AI call simulators are going to change the hospitality industry?
Ryan Daniel: I mean, on a long enough timeline, I don't think anybody has a choice. I think that they're going to have to convert to this. Um, I don't want anybody to think that this is going to be 100 human replacement. It, it will not and it should not be, if a hotel, a hotel chain calls us with a large call center, typically will say at the, at the very top, Okay.
80 percent replacement, um, you know, keep 20%. Um, it's good, especially now at this stage, and it will be like this for a while to consider AI an augmentation instead of full human replacement. so that's what this does. And, and so I, I see that everybody going, especially who has a. You know, a respectable amount of call volume, bringing Ehva in to help digest those calls and improve the customer experience because people don't have to wait on a hold during a high, high volume spikes or whatever, or because you're running a skeleton crew at two in the morning, and they're inundated or whatever.
That's how I see hospitality kind of very carefully stepping into something like this. And then very slowly growing and, um, whether they use Ehva or somebody else, the goal here is to step in and transition very slowly, very carefully and with a high degree of trust in, in these models and in these machines.
And if you don't do that, if you rush in, you're gonna have a bad time. And there's, there's a lot of people that are doing that now. 
Steve Carran: Agree. I agree. One thing I think during our intro, you know, we ordered room service or we ordered a restaurant reservation and things like that. The flexibility along with not only creating a reservation on that, but also, hey, can I have some towels too? It's almost like killing two birds with one stone.
It's not just you don't have to choose one thing or the other. It can happen. understand and recognize everything.
Ryan Daniel: She's very, she's very natural. Um, you know, we want to make sure that she's, um, corralled. We don't want to give her too much responsibility. Um, but, but if that is the case, we have ways of, of doing that where she can shift around to different domains. Um, and that ends up just having an even, you know, more realistic, higher quality experience.
and she's kind of, she's free, but she's also guardrailed. So she can have kind of like an open conversation with you, but she's also guard railed to make sure that she doesn't like go completely off the reservation or, or whatever. And, and that like fine tuning, that kind of fine guard railing is what's responsible for such a realistic kind of natural sounding conversation. 
Steve Carran: Well, that makes sense. Well, Ryan, we've been asking you the questions this whole time. This is where we turn the tables and let you ask David and I a question.
Ryan Daniel: Well, we've been talking and you guys have seen the tech. I mean, what do you guys think? What do you think about what we have here? Look for us, just like any other A. I. This is early days, right? This is just not even the beginning. This is like the preface, right? So what? How do you guys perceive us? Do you think that we're doing the right thing?
Do you like the tech? Is there any put yourself in my shoes? Is there any adjustments that you would make or advice on on how to better Um, kind of attack this industry. 
David Millili: Yeah. No, I'll just, I'll start. Um, I think you're taking the right approach. I mean, the labor shortage is huge, huge. You're taking it from an approach of it sounding realistic, um, and really trying to get that response time faster so people don't feel like there's that wait, because it's one thing being put on hold and there's another thing just kind of waiting, you know, sometimes some of the airlines, when you call, you kind of feel like, Oh, like, just get me 
Ryan Daniel: it's terrible. Isn't it? And it's not just the airlines. It's like everybody you call your cable company or your water company, or even booking a hotel, you know, I won't say who, but some of the big boys, man, you, you call their lines. And it's astounding to me that they, that they treat their, their potential customers in that manner, it's, it's crazy. 
David Millili: I have one trick for you. So if you start running into where you're, you know, you're pinging the CRS or whatever, get rates and Ehvailability. And some of those systems are old and archaic. When I ran hotels, my agents, when they were looking up, uh, Checking Ehvailability, they would say, well, I checked for Ehvailability.
Let me tell you a little bit about the property. We're located in Times Square, blah, blah, blah. And that could buffer that weight for you.
Ryan Daniel: Pomp 
time buyers. Yep. 
David Millili: yeah. Cause it won't be your, you won't be, it won't be your weight. It'll be waiting for the CRS or wherever you're getting the data from.
Ryan Daniel: Absolutely. Yeah, you nailed it. That's that's true. That is a major thing that we contend with. And we do do that. We have like some some buffer in their conversational just to buy us those couple extra seconds that we need to retrieve the information from like some super old wonky 
David Millili: Yeah. Trust me. I used to run those
Ryan Daniel: Yeah, 
Steve Carran: Um, I love this. Um, here and here's kind of a scenario that happened to me recently where I just was, you know, not it didn't ruin the guest experience, but it definitely put a wrinkle in it. You check in. The front desk person is incredible. I had, you know, somebody, a bellman took my bags up to my room.
Fantastic. Then we go and it's like, Oh, I could use a couple more towels before we go. So you call down to the front desk for the towels and nobody answers. Or, or else it takes a super long time for somebody to answer, right? And there is no way that, that can really kind of ruin the guest's experience a little bit.
When you had a great check in, you got to your room, your room looks great, but you just need one other thing. This just helps that so much where you don't have to have that person who, maybe like you said, you're running on a skeleton crew, or it's late at night and you want to see what dining options are Ehvailable, you know, things like that.
So I think you're on the right track. I I love this kind of stuff and you know, the more, uh, the more human like it sounds, I think the better. Um, I think the healthcare industry as well is a huge opportunity for you. I was just on a call with them the other day and the wait time was horrendous and then their AI person came on and I'm like, this is not a real person.
So, you know, that's, that's I think a huge opportunity for you as well. But I love what you're doing. It's so realistic and can keep up the great work.
Ryan Daniel: we're trying to do it. We're trying to do it right. And for me, Um, it's about CX, uh, in AI is not going to do you any good if, if you treat your customers like crap and they get frustrated are kind of internal model is to fight what we call machine rage and you've all been through machine rage. You, you call your, your cable company and they treat you like crap and put you on hold and then somebody comes on the phone that barely speaks English and you just get so angry you want to throw on your phone against the wall or entire.
A reason for being is to eliminate all of that friction and do it like entirely not leave a little bit and so that's why we're here. That's what we're gonna 
David Millili: That's great.
Steve Carran: I can't wait to see Ehva at the big cable companies and the big internet companies, because I feel like those are the ones that I always get stuck on the longest. So
Ryan Daniel: Now, now, now that you're like, along those thinking tracks, like, think about how many. Different types of industries would benefit from this, but more importantly, how much like the general public as a whole would feel better. I mean, once you love in 20 years from now to be sitting with your kids and talk about, hey, you know, when I was your age, we had to call and.
They treated us like crap. We didn't have all this AI stuff that you have, that you kids have now, you know, I had to walk 10 miles in the snow kind of story, but about like, and it's like, amazing to me that the general public like puts up with this, I guess we'd really just don't have a choice, but it's like, dude, you're always treated like absolute garbage from most of these, these companies. 
Steve Carran: not going to disagree with you on that one, Ryan. Uh, well, our producer, John has been sitting by listening the whole episode. So we're going to pass it off to him for the final question before we get you out of here.
Ryan Daniel: Uh oh. 
Jon Bumhoffer: All 
right, well, one thing though, I think, yeah, that's right, one thing I 
think you 
Ryan Daniel: that final boss. 
Jon Bumhoffer: uh, in our pre In, in our pre call, but didn't, didn't get to highlight here was the, um, location accuracy of the voices that you have. And I think that's especially important when hospitality like, uh, where, whether it's a resort and one Island or a different area of the world and how you guys do that.
And so how you're focused on making sure that those things are accurate and are enhancing and make it and adding to that realism. So I just wanted to have you talk 
about that for a 
Ryan Daniel: So, yeah, at the, at the sake of sounding a little insensitive, you know, you guys kind of know how things are nowadays, I'll just kind of disclaim that and say that part of our secret sauce Is to always make sure that the voice is, because usually there's more than one that we select, um, for the environment and for the client that Ehva is moving into is a good representation of what those voices are currently, especially in a service oriented business like hospitality.
Right. If you're talking to your cable company, it doesn't matter so much because the voice is there. They don't even speak English. Usually they're in the Philippines or in India or whatever. But if you're calling like a hotel, we want to make sure that the voice represents exactly who currently is answering that phone.
And that's our part of our secret sauce in making this sound so real. And so we will have voices that are, have a little bit of. Ethnicity to them, a little bit of culture. We make sure that we program in things like microphone puffs and lip smacking and things like that, because That's what makes it sound real.
I can't tell you how many of the smaller competitors we have that, uh, select, you know, like a voice of like a 24 year old white girl and the voice sounds real in a vacuum. But once you put it into context, it like totally misses the boat or whatever, right? Because it's like, oh, well, you would never encounter that in this particular business or or whatever.
And that that does a lot of. For comfort for realism and that's that's a big important part that it's like everybody missed and the reason why they missed it because they don't have the background and telecom and CX like I do their programmers are guys from MIT who came up with a business plan, but never actually like dealt with making handling millions of phone calls and.
Pitching people or whatever it was, they don't know how to, how, uh, telephonic communication ought to be. There's no art there for them.
David Millili: That's great. That does it for another episode of the Modern Hotelier. Ryan, this is where you get to plug away, let people know how they can get in touch with you, how they can learn more about Ehva.
Ryan Daniel: Uh, super easy. The best thing to do is go to our website, EH va.ai and email me directly, Ryan, RYAN, at Ehva.ai. That's again EH va.ai. I'm happy to talk to anyone and everybody about this.
David Millili: That's great. So that does it for another episode of the Modern Hotelier, Hospitality's most engaged podcast. So whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to see you again soon. Thanks, Ryan.
Ryan Daniel: You're very welcome. Been a pleasure guys. 
Steve Carran: Thank you, Ryan.
David Millili: Take care.