The Modern Hotelier #229: 100% Guest Satisfaction Through Smart Hospitality Operations | with Will Gilbert
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Steve Carran: Welcome to another episode of The Modern Hotelier. We're coming to you from the Trade show floor at the Hospitality Show in Denver, Colorado. We're joined by Will Gilbert, Co-Founder of Bodhi. 
Will Gilbert: Welcome Will. How we doing today? Doing great. First day of the show, you know, lots to show off here. Some really new cool features and happy to be here.
Steve Carran: Great. A little different setting than the first time we chatted in Florida, but always good to see you in person.
Will Gilbert: Yeah. It was enjoyable having you there and really showing you where the rubber meets the road, you know, and how everything is done. But coming out here to these trade shows, and showing everything we've developed and all the new things supporting hotels globally is a lot of fun to do.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. So Will, can you tell us more about that? Aha moment of why you started Bodhi? 
Will Gilbert: Yeah, so, you know, we have 25 years of systems integrations experience, um, uh, behind Bodhi. And we had a property come to us about 12, 13 years ago, high-end mixed use property, very large, and all these different systems were being installed, all these smart systems and electronics and there was no way to manage them all in one pane of glass.
Everything was a separate device a separate interface, and we started off writing some software really as a one-off for this property. And as it is being developed and growing and expanding. As that property grew we saw something that no one else had. And, you know, moving forward, we had integrators coming to us to want to use that software. We had manufacturers coming to us saying, Hey, this is amazing, we wanna use it to deploy our properties. And, you know, at that point in time we said, okay, this is something real. People love it. It was really built from a need. 
Steve Carran: So what do you see as Bodhi’s biggest competitive advantage? And where do you see yourself growing in the next three to five years?
Will Gilbert: I mean, so our biggest competitive advantage is being a hundred percent manufacture agnostic, you know, nobody else can really claim that. And by doing that, we have all these different data points coming in. So one thing that we can do is we can ensure 100% guest satisfaction. Meaning since we're integrated with all these different devices and all these different systems, we're able to watch all those different data points and predict what's going to happen next, and make sure that when the guest shows up to the hotel, they're not gonna be checked into a room, that's not working, it's not gonna be too hot or too cold. Everything's gonna work just perfectly for them. 
Steve Carran: That's great. And where do you see yourself in the next three to five years? 
Will Gilbert: More and more integrations. You know, here at this show we have a couple of partners, brand new on the system, you know, great to have them, and to just continually to expand that of course continuing all of our AI initiatives. You got some fantastic AI products that are only getting better every day, it just like openAI, you know, openAI, they rip and replace their models it seems like every week. Right? And you have to be that way. You have to be always advancing, and that's exactly what we're doing, you know, over the next many years he's always advancing that technology.
Steve Carran: That's great. So as you mentioned, Bodhi is manufacturer agnostic and also integrates against multiple different systems. What engineering decisions did you make when you were creating Bodhi to really support the flexibility of that. 
Will Gilbert: Sure. Yeah. So the first thing that we did is we decided to not go and leverage existing technologies from different manufacturers to bring data into a platform. You know, today when there's, you know, cloud-based systems, there's a lot of things that you can use to really kind of launch your products. We went and wrote everything ourselves, right? So what I mean by that is that we went to every manufacturer and met with them and sat down. We do that every single day, and we work directly with their hardware. Sometimes our software runs directly on their actual, uh, our application runs directly on their hardware. And by doing that, we can bring in all that data directly and we have full control of that data, and another reason that we did that is you, Bodhi is a global product.
When you're doing work in Asia or the Middle East, you have to be able to store that data in those locations. And so everything was done in the very beginning with that in mind to keep all that data localized and be able to be portable with the system. 
Steve Carran: So you've talked about GuestGPT, SuperAgent and BodhiGPT as well. What use cases do you see those driving the most value for hotels? 
Will Gilbert: The number one use case is that five-star review. You know, having a guest show up, they're gonna be happy with their stay,  they're gonna go home and tell their friends how amazing that property was. And the AI for us, we have all these amazing data points, but the AI is really gonna ensure that for the property, you know, it all starts with our super agent.
Our super agent is monitoring all the data that's coming in. Right now we're receiving about a quarter million messages, a second coming in for properties those messages are things like lights, turning on rooms, cooling, heating, motorized shades, going up and down common area spaces as well.
You know, the humidity in the fitness center, the restaurant, the music levels, all these different data points are coming into the Super Agent. And from there, that's where we can utilize BodhiGPT. You know, we have a fantastic dashboard, but BodhiGPT makes it really easy, you can go and just ask it questions naturally. How is my building doing? Who checked in last night? What was our occupancy, you know, last month? And so all that data coming in with BodhiGPT makes it super easy for that hotel to use that data. And from the GuestGPT really, really cool. You know, it starts off first when you check into the hotel.
We send you that text and email to your phone with a link. Click that link. Nothing to install. Nothing to download. There's no app store at all. You click that link. From there, you can open your door, control your room, order food and beverage. But we also have a fantastic AI assistant. Our AI assistant is much more than being able to ask for, you know, restaurant recommendations or needing towels and things like that. Can we do that? Absolutely. But we can actually use that to interact with the guests and say, how was your room? And if you tell it, you know, my room's kind of hot, my room's kind of cold. We'll go, we'll change the temperature in the room. Our safety super agent will change the temperature in the room and report back to the property that you complained about a problem. So we're doing a lot of different things with the three different AI products that we have. 
Steve Carran: That's awesome. And when you're talking to decision makers in hotel operators, what's one thing or a few things that they get really excited about that kind of pushes them over the edge? That, Hey, we need to work with Bodhi?
Will Gilbert: You know, between select services and ultra luxury there's the differentiators there, but the number one overwhelming, is that a hundred percent guest satisfaction, right? Everyone, no matter what hotel you're running, you wanna make sure that guest is happy and they're gonna come back and see you again. But of course, you know, speaking to these different, uh, these properties, everyone cares, you know, about different things and Bodhi delivers all those different assets.
Steve Carran: That's great. So as Bodhi grows and expands, is there one market or segment that you're really interested in? 
Will Gilbert: Yeah. So, multifamily, you know, I always say hospitality isn't spelled H-O-T-E-L. And so, you know, when you're a living in an apartment building, you're a tenant, you're a guest. And so, you know, that's a big market for us. It's a slightly different market than hospitality because you have people that are living there, you know, full-time, that's where we have our Bodhi resident. The web-based guest app is fantastic for hotel stays, but having that branded experience for the property is even better.
Doing things like intercom integration, you know, video doorbells being able to do different scenes and seeing what's going on at the property, you know, Bodhi's bringing all that experience that we have in the hotel industry to that landscape. And also, you know, same thing, being able to make sure that the temperature, that the thermostats working in those properties. You know, property management is not being reactive to problems, they're actually seeing it before it happens because, you know, when you're a tenant of a property and it's midnight and your AC stops working, it's not a very good thing to happen. 
Steve Carran: Absolutely. So for those that are interested in getting in touch with Bodhi, what's the best way to reach you or get in contact?
Will Gilbert: Yeah, best way, gobodhi.com, LinkedIn is also a fantastic way. 
Steve Carran: Awesome. Well, thanks for the time today. We really appreciate it and wish you a successful show.
Will Gilbert: Awesome. Thank you.
Steve Carran: Thank you.