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Each episode of GAIN Momentum focuses on timeless lessons to help grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, and technology. Whether you’re a veteran industry leader looking for some inspiration to guide the next phase of growth or an aspiring executive looking to fast-track the learning process, this podcast is here with key lessons centered around four questions we ask each guest.
GAIN Momentum episode #93: Shared Context as the Future of Guest Management Systems | with Kevin Li & Kevin Lowry
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to GAIN Momentum podcast. I'm joined today by two Kevins at Canary Technologies, and to make this even more confusing, their names are Kevin Li and Kevin Lowry, both K. Kevin Li, is the lead of guest communication products. And Kevin Lowry is the head of strategic Partnerships. Now that I've done my hard part introducing both of them. I wanna start off by directing some questions basically at each of you to say what your roles are. Kevin Li, what is the lead of guest communication products? What's the day in a day look like?
Kevin Li: I mean, a lot of it is, I think like as product managers, like we, we love to understand and we love to solve problems. Um, and so. Unfortunately, day to day, it's just totally different. I, I think, like we typically joke that PMs do a lot, but also, you know, it's hard to point to exactly what you're doing.
Like you're ensuring that all things are kind of moving along, you know, engineers are working and, and the technical teams are working on, you know, the most impactful problems and products. Um, we're talking to customers to just like understand how the market is changing. Um, we're thinking about product strategy around what areas we want to go into.
Um, and so the day-to-day is very different. I have a very hard time explaining this to, um, my parents and grandparents who kind of know traditional, you're a doctor, you're a lawyer. You're this kind of role. Um, but yeah, like really we talk to our customers. We understand what's going on in market. We understand what problems they're sort of facing, and we work alongside them to really bring products to life, to, to make life easier, um, at hotels.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. And, uh,
Kevin Lowry.
Kevin Lowry: Sure. So I, I hit up our strategic partnerships program here. Uh, partnerships can mean many different
at any different companies, so also similar, um, kind of describing
my, my friends family over here, uh, here at Canary Partnerships really is dealing with the different tech companies that we either integrate or are friendly with. How we can work
and, and stop more problems for hotels and guests alike. Um, and then also working with folks, um, that are influencers, uh, across the globe and ambassadors to
uh, word canary across
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, well what, what I'm gathering from both your roles is that it's incredibly dynamic in an industry that is rapidly evolving, even though from the outside in, it may not look like the hotel. Hotel landscape and the hotel technology landscape is changing, but it is changing very fast and there are a lot of great tools available as well as a lot of feature requests happening behind the scenes to keep advancing that.
And, um, that, now I wanna lens both your roles around. Where Canary fits into this, and also introduce our listeners to a lot of the, what I call alphabet soup of hotel technology. And that is specifically, um, uh, Canary's, uh, core platform is a guest management system, a GMS. what is that?
Kevin Lowry: Sure, I can take
a high level. Uh, then Kevin, you can kind of hop in to some specifics here. Typically, uh, canaries platform, guest management system, or
GMS
you know, what everyone's familiar with with the PMS and, and how it runs hotel operations. guest management system runs the digital guest
So basically the easiest way to really describe that is the layer that controls the communication between the hotels guests entire journey, and that spans everything from your pre-booking experience all the way to your post stay. So everything Canary does and focuses on is within that guest journey spectrum and how we can really improve that relationship, remove bottlenecks for hotels, streamline solutions, and overall create better hospitality and a better experience for our guests at hotels.
Adam Mogelonsky: I think that's kind of a perfect definition. Uh, Kevin Li, do you wanna add anything from the, uh,
product development side?
Kevin Li: Yeah, I mean I think like the main thing when we think about like a guest management system is like, you know, like Kevin Lowry said, everyone knows the, the property management system, you know, the core entity is like the property. That's how you manage it. Um, when we think about hospitality and we think about.
Like what matters to hoteliers and owners? Um, the guest management system or guest experience is becoming increasingly important. Um, and that's sort of where this like guest management system, um, really flourishes. I, I think like, ultimately from our standpoint, like we really wanna be that interaction layer between, um, hotel guests and hotel staff.
So anytime that staff and guests are interacting with each other, that's where we really see our, our guest management system jump in.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And, uh, you know, uh, there's a bit of an arms race happening here where if you look at guest expectations, you could even make the argument that, uh, a hotel can't really function and service guests properly. Without A GMS, uh, less induce a lot of negative reviews on TripAdvisor for being slow uncommunicative, not following through on on guest service requests, et cetera.
So to show the power of A GMS, I'd like to focus this around as a start to important functions, uh, the and checkout, uh, which are common areas where we can derive a lot of efficiencies in the GMS. Guest, uh, guest, guest communications. Um, but there's a lot that's happening under the hood to make those as seamless and digital as possible.
Uh, Kevin Li, could you start off by talking about some of the functionality that goes into a digital check-in experience and a checkout?
Kevin Li: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think like arrivals and departure are oftentimes the most stressful moments for a day for guests and for staff. Like you. You see the lines that are forming there. You know, you kind of, whenever I shadow hotels, it's always like, oh man, 2, 3, 4 o'clock is approaching like it, it's.
It's time to get ready for the show. Um, and so it's a stressful time for both guests and staff. You know, there's lines, there's paperwork, there's payment collection, um, and, you know, staffing shortages, um, hurt first and last impressions as well. So for checking, we really aim to. Make that as easy of a poss uh, of an experience as possible.
And we have a few different solutions for hotels to choose from, to ultimately reduce those bottlenecks. I think for us it's all about pre providing the best guest experience, one that makes it memorable for the hotel, makes it really easy for them, and really streamline, um, from when they. Give their information to when they enter into their room.
And so we have mobile check-in to pre-check in guests, which sort of save them time at the front desk. Um, the self-checking kiosk is just another way. Let's say you don't complete your digital check-in, you can still come to the hotel and use our self-serve kiosk to to do the check-in. Digitally collect signs in stores, different cars for faster retrie and mobile key.
You,
um, enable that totally contactless experience up front.
Adam Mogelonsky: You know, you, you sort of jumped the gun there on the mobile key part because that's been a lot, a lot of times the holy grail, uh, going forward. But it has, it does require a lot of, uh, a lot of integrations and API keys to make that work. Could you talk about, uh, how far that's come along over the past two years and, um.
Some of the nuances you've had to solve to make that, uh, available for Apple Wallet and or Android wallet.
Kevin Li: Do you wanna take this one?
Kevin Lowry: I'll take
Yeah, mobile, mobile key is, uh, it's, uh, one of our, our newer products that we actually
launch last year. Canary is, is a big believer in the wave of wallet
keys and a big reason for that is, um, we believe in not having to download an
app everything on Canary.
is appless There's no download required. If you think about going to a convention, you have to download your air, your, uh, airline app. You have to download your convention app. You have to download all of these different
apps It becomes an overload. It's, it's absolutely wild. Right. I, I see you rolling your eyes here,
Adam I've, we've been, we've been at conventions
You know how it is. Um, Canary really tries to be a really easy to adopt GMS
and big point of that is to be right to meet the guests where they are And wallet keys we feel are really the future here where you're able to be able to have a key within your phone that's just accessible immediately. Um, Phone dyes can still use it. you can, you know, quickly just pull up your key directly from, from your phone without having to have an, extension or an app on top of it. Um, definitely lots of integrations and intricacies that, that, you know, to, to make this magic
happen But when the magic happen, it's, you know, extremely appreciated by the guests.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I, it's, um, uh, the, the last mile, as you said, Kevin Li, and, uh, it's in my mind I love it because it does make it so seamless, but now you can do so much more with it. Like, I'm starting to see digital, digital keys that are branded according to events that people are checking in with. And other cool modalities like that, and having that all.
Um, coordinated by a central, a central GMSA centralized platform makes it so seamless in terms of, uh, the design that you can do, as well as ensuring that that is, uh, a very controllable process and it's never, um, it's never interrupted, or there's, there's never gaps in that technology that appear as versions are updated and systems start talking to one stop, talking to one another, and so on.
Um, so on that note. One thing that, uh, we're, we're seeing with hotel technology, aside from just the mobile keys, which is one application, this movement towards all in one systems, where things are essentially through one platform to really help hoteliers focus on hotel instead of just maintaining all these disparate pieces of technology and trying to daisy chain them together.
Um. Let's direct this at Kevin Lowry. Kevin Lowry, what is the best argument for system consolidation?
Kevin Lowry: For system a.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah.
Kevin Lowry: I know there's, of course the argument of best in breed versus all in one, right? Which is where we're, we're kind getting at here. Believes that hotels will between the two that, and a lot of that has to do of having this streamlined system together is really what creates that best in breed product for hotels. It makes it a seamless, seamless, uh, product for hotels, for guests, and they can combine all of these disparate functions that cohesively go together and create a, uh, a guest journey And when, when you have these multiple different point solutions, right, you have. Integr think were talking different tech vendors that all go together. Um, it really creates a lot of bottlenecks and gaps and you can have some beautiful integrations, but you know, so you firmly believe that if you can combine more products together, it truly creates this product that makes it simpler on the hotels, simpler on the staff.
Kevin Li: I think like if I could jump in here, I think like when we look at hotel operations, like it's not. There are sometimes there are tasks that sort of are limited to a single system. And for that, you know, you, you wanna go deep there, you wanna have like deep expertise there. But we see that within hotel operations, there's so many flows that are just interwoven with each other that it makes sense to be able to kind of have kind of systems that are able to talk to each other.
You know, whether it's the system or system that you integrate into. I think like on the AI side, we think a lot about like the context that we can get, um, you know what a guess is. Chatting about and communicating with is ultimately important in terms of like the ticket that's created and, and that's a multi-system thing.
So whether it's, you know, a, a product within Canary or just context that we have in different systems, we really see that hotel workflows are not, you know, just within, contained in one place. There's just so much like interwoven interconnectedness, um, that having that context is just so important to getting the right outcome.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, I love that you mentioned that Kevin Li about, um, interconnected workflows. And I was wondering, could you give an example of that, because. Uh, you know, we, we've seen it so many times where somebody requests something and then it's getting pushed over to the sauce, the service optimization solution or service optimization system.
But then that isn't talking to the guest service department. Uh, so this whole idea of almost a branching of, of flows is so cool. Uh, could you, could you give us an example of how that can work?
Kevin Li: Yeah, I mean, I think like even even in talking to like a hotel recently, um, even cross channel, I think like you see phone calls, you know, come in during the day. It's with, you know, the guest experience team or you know, with the front desk or something like that. Um. They were talking about potentially booking like a vacation for their family.
Um, they chatted about rates, they chatted about, you know, things that, um, the hotel was able to offer, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and then they were like, great, let me talk to my, you know, partner and then I'll, I'll sort of get back to you. And at that point, for most hotels without the interconnectedness, you, you might lose context of that.
And unless you're calling back and talking to the same exact person or you know, the same agent, um, that information can be gone with Canary because we're able to sort of understand that, you know, when they messaged in either via, like I think they messaged in via web chat later. Um, having that shared context is so powerful, um, for a net new agent to see that someone, you know, they had called earlier in the week and had talked about a vacation, they're asking some additional questions, but it's suddenly put it in context that like, hey, this person is actually looking to book, you know, a summer vacation, like they've already reached out about this.
Um, these follow question are in context. It to be. A more powerful interaction when you already, you know, they're asked, they, I think, I think they were asking questions about like the pools and stuff like that. Um, and let's say you had no context, you might say the pools are closed right now. It's the, in New York City.
Um, so. Sorry, but because they had the context that they knew, hey, this person called in earlier. They're talk, they're talking about booking a family vacation in July. They're like, yeah, our pools are open in July, like currently closed, but they open between May and September. Like it should be a perfect time.
And I think like that is the, the difference maker when you can kind of interweave and have context shared across the different interactions.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, I, one area where shared context can really help is this whole idea of upselling or dynamic upselling. And I bring this up for context. This call is, we were, we are recording January 9th, 2026. And there's a lot of uncertainty in the air in terms of occupancy and demand projections for various reasons.
And one overall trend we know is that a good strategy for revenue growth over the next year is going to be growing revenue per guest. And upselling is a very important process for that. So, um, Kevin Lowry, could I start with you in terms of getting a definition of upselling in terms of where it falls within the guest journey?
And then Kevin Li, could you describe about how shared context and different workflows can help build that for hotels?
Kevin Lowry: I love.
about where it falls within the guest journey
and it's something that Canary particularly thinks of and, and focuses on at all points. going back to your previous question a little bit on, on, having all of these different solutions and being able to span the entire guest journey gives us the unique advantage of being able to hit guests with upsells that are relevant to them at the right time, from the right medium. Upsell can span across the entire journey. Whether you are purchasing room upgrades before your stay, maybe you want a bottle of champagne for your
special day, uh, before you show up. You are in, in stay or you're just about to check in and you wanna have a early check in, or you wanna just purchase some extra items during your, your hotel stay. It right before, check our up, extra sleep.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I mean
at 6:00 AM. Kevin Li, humor side, uh, let's talk the product behind that makes that happen. Upselling. How do make that work
Kevin Li: Yeah, I mean. I think it's totally true. So many hotels that we're talking about are thinking about revenue going to next year and how they can increase, you know, both booking revenue, revenue and auxiliary revenue. What we've found is that the most successful upsells feel like a helpful suggestion and not like a sales pitch.
I think there's like so often, you know. It can be just like a barrage of things. Um, and it's just like, Hey, money for this, money for that. Um, but ultimately when it becomes, Hey, this is how we're making your, we can make your experience better. And when it's more targeted, we see, you know, the success rates just skyrocket.
And I think that's where like the interconnectedness is so important and it's all about. To context. Um, so, you know, within our dynamic upsells tools, we'll have, you know, the guest data around arrival time, length of stay, previous conversations, and, and ultimately use that to present the right offers. Um, so for example, during booking, if a guest indicates, um, that it's their anniversary, you know, they, they're booking something for, for their partner and their, they're coming dynamic upsells can then automatically send offer for, you know.
Or champagne or wine. Um, if that's something that the hotel offers, and because we're mobile first, it's super, super frictionless. It feels like you're sort of having this conversation and it can be like, Hey, we're really excited about, um, welcoming you to your stay. Um, excited that you're celebrating your anniversary with us.
Um, here are some, here's some potential add-ons that can really, um, enhance, you know, enhance your, stay with us. Um, and keeping a mobile first keeps it frictionless. The staff don't have to manually sell it. Um, and it's just all done before a guest even arrives.
Adam Mogelonsky: So one other part to this guest journey is. Uh, the multi stay or getting a guest to come back and not just having the layer between guest and staff, but having the layer between guest and staff over multiple stays. So therein, uh, how does Canary as a GMS interact with a CRM where oftentimes the, uh, central guest profile is stored?
Kevin Li: So from our side. We like to maintain as much of a, you know, opinion on, you know, systems, reservations, guests and all that. But we also wanna make sure that our products work within the construct of a property and what, and the systems that they're using. We don't want our software to be, to make things harder.
We want it to make it easier and so, you know, we'll build the right connections and ingest the right information. We feel like we have a very rich trough of information ourselves. I think something that's interesting. I'm really excited about is that within communications, like there's such a rich set of data that you just get from conversations, right?
Like when you think about, um, historically you might have had to like leave a note or an internal note or something like that. That's still something that, that, you know, as a staff member, you have to remember. It's like you. I booked this. Let me leave a note real quick. Like, by the way, it's their anniversary with conversation data, and especially conversational commerce and booking.
All of that information just gets automatically added. And so, you know, we work closely with our partners to ensure that we have, you know, the, the right information sync from systems. So to really drive, um, the best experience,
Adam Mogelonsky: So to round out this whole idea of getting data within A GMS and this whole idea of giving more context to any conversation, so that way we can, we can better sell and we can better serve service guests. What other modules or features or tools within the product suite at Canary can really help to deliver that end-to-end, um, control of the guest experience, and also offer more data points for the shared context.
Kevin Li: the board
Yeah, I think there's lot of,
know, actionary, we're always constantly thinking about our
what it's about.
out from there. I think,
this this There are so many additional
think like in, we
compendium
for some services menus.
They can order food beverage through it. Um, and every
could an data point,
that we the best guest experience throughout their stay.
Adam Mogelonsky: Uh, anything else to add there? Kevin Lowery.
Kevin Lowry: Sure. Yeah. I, I think to round out the
the products, you know our, suite of, uh, sales and catering, uh,
hub as we call it.
Which surrounds the
the
links. And these are, these are really
features
that can talk and connect
to the rest of our
products
and,
offer
A-P-C-I-G-D-P-R
secure environment to be able to collect credit card information.
So, of course, being able to offer and upsell and, and,
being able to sell something is
important. Important is
the, uh, being able to collect that payment in a secure
way, that offers that trust back to the
guest. it makes it just easier and
quicker for, for staff to also be able to send that out, whether it's a, a contract or some form of, of
being
able to
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, just making things frictionless, which as we know across a you that's all And so so where we're heading with all shared touch points I is obviously have a product which database machine learning the and and So I'm wondering, Kevin Li, you start off by talking additional the core context can that are, uh, offered by
Kevin Li: Yeah, I, I think like that canary. AI is interwoven into a number of, of our tools and kind of try, we try to interweave them as seamlessly as possible. Like our stance is really, you know, the industry is changing so much, we should just ensure that we're integrating things in, you know, the most effective way that builds the right, the best guest experience.
Um, that said, I think like our most visible forms are within the communications products. And so we have our AI guest messaging, our AI voice assistant and AI web chat. Um, and so a lot of them, I think like. We've seen the highest success in, in deploying AI so far, and sort of these conversational agents.
I think if you look at the market, that's sort of how a things started. Um, and that's. We really have this vision of like, across the communications products, like any way that a hotel and guests are, are communicating with each other, sort of facilitated through our platform and our best in class AI agents work alongside staff to boost efficiency, revenue and guest personalization. Um, and messaging, voice and web chat, um, are the three leading pieces there.
Um, every product we sort of lead with, when to two things about right, revenue and in their operations. So. Digital agents through communications. That's the lens we always wanna, wanna lean on is like, how do we boost more revenue? How do we improve operations? And so with AI guest messaging, it automates 80% plus of instate guest questions across SMS WhatsApp and other messaging channels.
It's integrated into a number of different systems and, and it's really. Like our, our agent platform that allows, you know, things to flow smoothly. We can do dynamic upsells through it, and it feels very conversational and natural. Um, this means, you know, guests when they message in, they get instant answers and it doesn't bog down the front desk.
Uh, the front desk staff are still free, um, from, you know, all these questions and, and things coming in as well. Um, the upsells piece we, we sort of chatted about and how it boosts boosts. Revenue for the hotel. Um, voice is an interesting thing. I think like Canary, we sort of led with messaging first. As we started chatted with Martin, the vision is any way that
hotel and guests are trying to interact and, and voice became such a big piece of that.
I think when we went and did research out in market calls are still a majority of how, how people,
you know, breach the hotel and so. Building on sort of this
backbone of the AI guest messaging that we already have. Um, we sort of launched our voice
assistant. It answers a hundred percent of inbound calls.
Most people kind of call to book. And so we're able to kind of directly capture the booking revenue that would
otherwise be lost. And what we see, what we see from the data is
that, you know, or what we saw in the data was that about a third of calls
were, you know, being missed. About 50% of those were, were related to bookings.
And so if you think about like how you wanna boost revenue, like we wanna make sure that every call is answered, every opportunity for revenue is taken. Um, and so, you know, we, we really focus a lot on our voice assistant on being able to drive it through, through booking, um, as well as the, those contextual upsells.
And then web chat works in a, in a similar way to voice, um, in that. So focuses for pre-booking as folks are on the website, they may have questions about the property. Um, it's interesting, I, I think like in market you see the interaction layer changing. Um, and consumer patterns change as well. I think historically you go to a website, you might use the search bar and you might search for pools, go to the pool page, um, click in, read it, like understand it, and, and you sort of had to use this search information to find it. Chat has really, um, you know, sort of led as this new interaction layer, like, and folks are starting more
comfortable that they don't want to the search bar say, have all these questions,
to information, digest it.
much easier for them
Chat
where like, Hey, I'm
the of
um, family friendly, that has
good um, also has heated pools that are mineral free. And then from there, you
AI can look at all the
then
Within knowledge base and be recommend that rather before you might have
to I guess All of this is about getting information to the
brochures and as a result, um, helping them make, you
coming
the data that
to a hotels about
when guests don't get what they
or and their, their phone calls answered.
The worst thing that happens is the
with Canary
website because
had of where
sort of the lens that we have lot of our, communications products, is how do provide best guest experience?
How do we
them the
a be then how we facilitate
all
tools our omnichannel ai, which is kind of the backbone of all of our products. I think it's like
one shared platform.
Um, and you get,
you know, a uniform response tone. All of
this is sort of uniform, no matter how a guest is
trying to, to communicate with
the hotel.
Adam Mogelonsky: to get and more raised, in use and I like your tools within the GMS the web in stay chat, WhatsApp, interface they're just now you also have
guest layer
layer
that's
interacting
restaurant and
there
know the website in a location, able to than uh, where this comes a head, is, uh,
against.
less of digital and More,
more
uh,
know that conversation is through, upgrading layers, so few AI
way.
Um, another means phone
means
aren't
that where this interacts
is.
is
that website my own bias for a our we the give all the
Use data within comfortable And do the improve their et cetera to
of these
essentially form
a term
Kevin Li: It's interesting, like everyone's thinking about it, right? Like answer engine optimization is kind of like the, the
buzzword right now. think
as of moving
search and
they're realizing
of ways.
from
you and the feedback you're are changing.
think some of the ways that
least, in overall commercial really about, you know, like. Industry leading publications and that information can help a lot more.
Um, think about, I don't know if you're recommended by Conde Nast or something like that. Like that is weighted a little higher than if, you know, you just have something within, within a website. That said, I think everyone's thinking about it. Um. I won't go too much into it because I think this is something we're, we're thinking about too and you know, still something that we've had a lot of conversations around, but
it's a space we wanna be in.
When we think about Canary, we wanna help hotels
drive revenue.
Um, and this is a big
piece of it.
Adam Mogelonsky: Thought on, um how a GMS can help, uh, hotels drive more revenue through
uh, AI driven search.
Kevin Lowry: this.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, you know, Kevin Li you raised a very important earlier on, just casually, new I like folks are kind from, traditional like uh, from from text to voice, in a lot And, uh, what are you seeing uh, all the data that's available to you all getting in I at you know my conversations in the process? it's
Kevin Li: I think it's always been
but whether or not you've had sort of capacity the staff to be able
that Um, I think like with a lot of the AI
voice, AI chat,
all that. upside is that you're able to kind of capture lot
of the uh,
to
I think our voice product, like one of the
let's say, perspective?
Even we help facilitate the booking or we capture the information either way. The hotel has that information that this person reached out, they were looking for a booking, and it gives you the agency to sort of take that into your, into your own hands as well.
Um, and so I think we'll continue to see consumers get more, get more comfortable with conversational commerce and, and almost, you know, start leaning towards that. Um, as agents continue to get better and better, um, you know. I know that I'm at fault here. Um, I'm finding it a lot
easier to just, you know, have a conversation about it versus
browse a, you know, browse website,
um, go through the, the, various booking
flows, et cetera, et
cetera.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I, I mean, it's, it's yet one more channel that hotels have to think about. I mean, at one point there was no, O only had g Ds and, uh. GDS OTAs, meta search, uh, direct, uh, voice, And now, a EO uh, search answer engine optimization. Um, but another cool part is, uh, you talked about having this, um, this sort of central think we're guess, uh, omni ai to important
the and agentic workforce sits layers of, you know of and unified
a talk about some other, see like with
from a know yeah
Kevin Li: yeah. I, I think like think of our gentech workforces, um, we really think about being able to take action and really understand what is the right outcome. And I think like for a long time, like.
that perfectly you the we're really.
Starting to move being able to
aside these single
ultimately understanding goal workflow. They can break it
and then actions systems and the right
to like a
we talk to no shortage of
to Um, and there always will be sort of these simple tasks, and I think this
is the best place to start Simple start that sort of happen on repeat. Um, we can see AI
have the fastest and
the highest quality impact and um,
but we think about
agentic workflows as well really we see the most success
when you when you have sort of have of have staff and, digital agents work in concert with each other, um, there's gonna be tasks that.
Require humans, context from humans is so, so important. Um, agents are really only as good as the information that they have. And so hotels can still kind of, you know, staff are always gonna be able to kind of be the best position there, but the context that they're able to provide really, really help these agents.
And I think over time as they get more powerful, you know, we'll always find additional things, um, additional things to do. Um, yeah, I think like. Hotels aren't sort of in, in a
place where I go to the operations and are like, actually I
don't have too much. Like I don't
have enough to do. Um, they're always like, there's just so much to do.
If you can just
help me, that would be insanely
helpful.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, I, I think that ties back to what said about um, the distributor shared uh, or, or towards uh, Now, uh. from
a or a into steps They can take across do workflows, uh, thereby move, move think when we layer in whenever what would
there's
uh, to, operate, will you know that that again gives more.
to the whole of happen
because, uh, you need to have fluid a, Um. when agent workflows as tasks. less we get into hallucinations and you know
Kevin Li: Yeah. I think like us having
about in
know, a compounding And, you know, we, in tech, we, we love
effect. And so, you know, we have an understanding. I think oftentimes with all these AI systems, the important is that there's all these APIs and, you know, CPS and, and all those are, yeah.
Monoclonal protocols, application. Sorry, I forgot the, the last bit of it, but I think the difficult thing is that there's so much data, but. Understanding the data is the most important thing, and I think like understanding how you interact with the system, you know, what are the, the various system calls that are going back and forth, you know, how do you know what's actually going on there?
It, I like to think about it. It's like, you know, let's say you have an early employee, like without any context, it's really hard to get things done just by saying like, you know, here's a bunch of sheets of paper. Like figure out like what's going on here. Understand the context is everything. I think. At Canary, you know, once we're sort of, we're building this like shared context layer based on hospitality systems, and that as a result allows us, you know,
deep understanding of how things sort of flow, what is the shape of information, I think like having that
AI backbone is so
important to ultimately driving the
right outcomes.
Adam Mogelonsky: Uh, Yeah, I, I love that about a, a shared context layer and, uh, I can only imagine your, uh, your two week scrum meetings are pretty crazy to figure out How to actually evolve that. Um, so, uh,
Kevin and Kevin, uh, we've had a great conversation.
about Ai Let's look ahead to for what are you excited terms of you effect we we a compounding
Kevin Li: I'll let Kevin Lowry go first.
Adam Mogelonsky: thing
Kevin Lowry: The, the much, uh, the much asked question. Um, of 2025. What I'm I'm actually seeing, touch points, always
additional layers within that guest journey flow that we live in.
Um, everything we
build is really based off of what
hotels are
telling us that they need. So it's, it's, uh, you know, we're, we're working closely with our hotel partners to
understand what's the evolving
need of, of the guest, what's the evolving need of the hotel? that changes. Changes. I don't, I don't think that's ever changed faster in our lifetimes than right now
as we're evolving with technology and
ai.
Some these.
Adam Mogelonsky: I don't think it's ever gonna slow down.
we
Ai Yeah. Um, Kevin Li, anything to add before we
close out?
Kevin Li: No, I think, I think Kevin summed it up perfectly. I think like, I'm excited about how fast the space is moving. I think like. AI is moving. The industry is just moving at a speed, you know, that is unprecedented. Talk to friends and it's like, if you're not essentially replatforming your, your core engine, every six months, you're falling behind.
And that's how fast the technology is changing. But with that also just comes immense opportunity. And so I think like we've always led with, you know, what are core problems that hotels have and how do we ensure that, you know. We understand what's going on in market with technology to
properly apply that.
And so I'm personally just excited, you know, on how AI is gonna continue to grow and how we can continue working with our partners to sort of
find the right fit there.
Adam Mogelonsky: always always months timeline to upgrade your systems? I know that used to be unheard of and now
Kevin Li: it's, it's the norm.
Adam Mogelonsky: based I mean, it's scary, but also beautiful at the same time in terms of just what's possible now with technology to improve Operations and then, uh, grow the top line through upselling as we discussed. Making sure that calls aren't falling through through conversational AI and, um, whichever other amazing features are gonna be coming out in the next few years. Kevin Lowry, Kevin Li, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a delight to discuss, uh, where? Canary is and Where? it's going with artificial intelligence.
Kevin Li: Thank you, Adam.