HITEC 2025: Hotel Tech Innovation Slows as AI Hype Meets Reality

HITEC 2025: Innovation Review

At this year’s HITEC in Indianapolis, the focus remained on first-time exhibitors, as they often bring the freshest ideas to hotel technology. With over 350 exhibitors and only fifteen hours on the floor, prioritizing newcomers helps highlight innovations relevant to a broad range of hotels, rather than niche solutions. While many returning exhibitors likely had updates, this review centers on new products that caught attention during the event.

Overall Innovation Landscape

Compared to the previous two years, the volume of genuinely new innovations felt limited. AI continues to be embedded across products, offering incremental improvements, but true breakthroughs were scarce. Many offerings leaned heavily on AI-related marketing buzz rather than delivering substantial advancements.

There appears to be saturation, especially with numerous large language model (LLM) chatbots flooding the market without distinct value. Besides AI, some interesting ideas emerged in other areas, but many target small hotel segments rather than the industry at large.

AI Innovations: A Mixed Bag

The standout AI product was Levee, which earned both the People’s Choice and Judge’s Choice awards at the E20x competition. Levee uses AI combined with housekeepers’ smartphones to train staff on proper room preparation and then analyzes video scans of completed rooms to check for missing items or defects. This technology promises to improve housekeeping quality, reduce training time, and cut down on supervisory inspections. It’s applicable to almost any hotel and addresses common challenges in housekeeping management.

Other AI products showed potential but were more specialized. For example, Siv and Vella AI by Retreat focus on AI-assisted responses to meeting and group RFPs. These tools help sales teams acknowledge leads quickly and provide personalized, relevant information before deeper engagement. Though early stage and limited to properties with significant group business, they improve lead qualification by offering timely responses.

A new area gaining traction is workflow management for agentic AI. Companies like Airia, Soundhound’s Amelia, and Sensfix demonstrated products that connect LLMs with back-end hotel systems through visual process flows. This technology helps guide AI responses based on user intent, managing both guest and staff interactions. While still developing, solutions like these will be important for integrating AI into hotel operations.

Lastly, Hippo Video showcased AI-driven personalized videos for sales and guest engagement. Imagine a tailored welcome message from hotel staff embedded in RFP responses or pre-arrival communications. While not groundbreaking technology, this approach adds a personal touch that could enhance guest experience and sales efforts.

Robotics: Practical Innovations with Some Novelty

• Dyna Robotics introduced robotic arms capable of learning human tasks like towel folding.
• Tangible presented a robot with arms designed to assist in guest room prep by handling basic tidying and organizing.
• Urbot Robotics displayed a modular robot chassis that attaches to different tools such as delivery storage or vacuum units, potentially lowering robot ownership costs.
• IntBot featured a humanoid robot that interacts with guests but its practical hotel value remains uncertain beyond entertainment.
• Seed Apps Empire offered an AI-powered ironing machine capable of pressing shirts autonomously in about four minutes, which might serve as a convenient guest-facing vending solution.

Marketing, Sales, and Distribution Tools

Several products focused on upselling, personalization, and cross-selling, though few introduced truly novel features beyond prior years’ solutions. A total sales optimization platform is still elusive. For resorts and select hotels, Nutmeg offers guest-facing bookings for on-property services like restaurants, spas, and golf. Meanwhile, Trybe introduced a modern spa booking system to the U.S. market, bringing much-needed competition.

Guest Room and Operational Technology Highlights

Eeva demonstrated a guest-room washer-dryer that operates without plumbing. Guests fill a removable water bin manually and empty wastewater similarly. This could be a valuable amenity for long-stay guests or road trippers, offering convenience without the cost or wait of traditional laundry.

NoLix showcased affordable leak detection devices, including a $30 AI-powered toilet leak detector and a faucet water shutoff sensor. They also previewed a shower ceiling sensor for detecting water pooling, addressing costly water damage risks in hotels.

Ocra presented a solution to monetize unused hotel parking by connecting spaces to various parking apps, ideal for city hotels with limited parking availability.

Touchtab from Mtech Mobility offered a tablet that integrates property management system (PMS), point-of-sale (POS), and payment processing into a mobile device. This allows staff to serve guests anywhere on property and is compatible with legacy systems.

Final Thoughts

This year’s HITEC showed AI everywhere in marketing but mostly incremental product changes in reality. Levee stood out as a rare example of AI with practical, transformative potential. Robotics had some promising innovations, but few are ready for widespread hotel deployment. Other new products offer useful solutions but didn’t break new ground.

The industry seems to be moving past initial hype phases toward a more realistic understanding of AI and robotics challenges. The quest for impactful, broadly applicable hotel technology continues. For hospitality and events professionals, staying informed about evolving AI tools and operational tech will remain essential as solutions mature.