News Briefs

At HITEC Indianapolis 2025, IRIS, a global provider of digital F&B and guest experience platforms, will showcase a suite of new mobile ordering features designed to enhance guest satisfaction, increase revenue, and ease operational demands on hotel staff. The company will exhibit at Booth #807 from June 16–19, with executives offering live demos of their latest innovations.

Key feature rollouts include:

• Google Analytics Integration: Operators now have built-in access to user behavior data within the app, helping hotels fine-tune offerings based on guest engagement patterns.
• Verified Charge to Room: Streamlines in-room ordering by authenticating guests via surname and room number, automatically charging the folio for seamless transactions.
• Related Items on Cart Page: Uses intelligent upselling to boost average order value.
• Advance Ordering: Allows guests to schedule F&B and amenities ahead of their stay—ideal for personal touches like birthday cakes or pre-arranged room amenities.
• Digital Staff Ordering: Offers hybrid ordering—staff can input orders via mobile devices or POS while guests can also self-serve, giving flexibility without overburdening staff.
• Upgraded Guest Directory: More efficient content management with streamlined tools to showcase dining options, services, and local recommendations.

The innovations are part of IRIS’s strategy to deliver smart, scalable, guest-first technology in response to increased demand for digital hospitality solutions that improve experience without adding complexity to hotel operations.

Why This Matters:

1. It’s About More Than Mobile Ordering—It’s Platform Efficiency at Scale:
What IRIS is showcasing isn’t just a mobile ordering app. It’s a modular, data-informed platform that brings together digital F&B, guest messaging, upselling, staff tools, and directory features into one unified system. For hotel IT leaders juggling fragmented solutions, this reflects a strategic move toward tech stack consolidation.

2. Guest Expectations Are Outpacing Legacy Systems:
The ability to pre-order groceries, request room enhancements, or charge to a folio seamlessly reflects the shift toward personalized, on-demand service. IRIS’s updates show how platforms can respond to that demand without needing hotels to add headcount or retrain staff—a critical advantage in today’s lean labor environment.

3. IT’s Role in Revenue Growth Is More Tangible Than Ever:
With features like smart upsells and analytics baked in, platforms like IRIS give tech leaders the ability to directly influence guest spend, service recovery, and personalized promotions. This isn’t just ops support—it’s a revenue-driving tool with measurable ROI.

Hospitable, a property management platform for short-term rentals, has launched Copilot, an AI-powered tool designed to function as the central “brain” of STR operations. Available now for Mogul-plan users, Copilot gives hosts and managers a natural-language interface to query performance, guest sentiment, team productivity, and business trends in real time. Instead of digging through multiple dashboards and spreadsheets, users can ask simple questions like “Which listings underperformed last month?” and receive personalized, actionable responses.

Copilot is the centerpiece of Hospitable’s shift from PMS to an AI-driven super app for STR operators. It builds on existing AI features like Auto Inbox (automated guest messaging), Sentiment Analysis, Guest Summaries, and Knowledge Hub. The platform’s growing ecosystem of tools reflects a vision to empower hosts and managers with smarter automation and faster, more strategic decision-making.

Recognized as a 2025 Airbnb Preferred+ Software Partner and Booking.com Premier Partner, Hospitable is positioning itself at the forefront of short-term rental technology.

Why This Matters:
 

1. AI-Driven Command Centers Are Coming for Hotels Too:
While Copilot is designed for STRs, its core capability—unifying fragmented data and surfacing insights through natural language queries—has clear implications for hotel IT environments. For CIOs and VPs of IT managing tech stacks across multiple properties or brands, this signals the next evolution of property intelligence platforms.

2. Real-Time, Contextual Insight Is No Longer Optional:
Like STR hosts, hotel operators are drowning in data—from guest reviews to POS systems to workforce performance. Copilot’s model shows how AI can move beyond task automation to strategic enablement, turning raw data into real-time, role-specific decisions. This is especially valuable for distributed teams managing multi-property operations.

3. A Glimpse Into Future Guest Service and Ops Platforms:
Copilot’s smart messaging, sentiment analysis, and summary tools provide a preview of how future hotel platforms might proactively manage guest experience, flag issues before they escalate, and auto-resolve common concerns. For IT leaders evaluating future-facing platforms, these are critical capabilities to watch.

4. Integration and Intelligence Are Key to Vendor Selection:
With vendors evolving toward “super app” ecosystems, this launch reinforces the importance of choosing tech partners with strong integration capabilities, intelligent automation, and adaptability to evolving user needs—a strategic imperative for both hotel and restaurant operators under pressure to do more with leaner teams.

A new Cisco report, The Race to an Agentic Future, reveals that by 2026, nearly 70% of customer service interactions with tech vendors are expected to be managed by agentic AI—AI systems capable of independent action and contextual decision-making. In a global survey of nearly 8,000 business and IT decision-makers, 93% believe agentic AI will bring transformational benefits such as improved personalization and predictive service. Yet, 96% still value human interaction and 99% demand ethical AI governance. The report underscores the urgency for tech vendors to integrate agentic AI responsibly or risk falling behind.

Why This Matters to Hospitality IT Leaders:

1. Rising Service Expectations in Complex IT Environments:
Hotels and restaurants are navigating increasingly complex technology stacks—from PMS integrations to IoT, mobile check-ins, and AI-enabled operations. This mirrors broader enterprise trends: 92% of surveyed organizations say vendor support is now more critical than ever. Hospitality IT leaders must demand—and evaluate—agentic AI capabilities in vendor partnerships to stay efficient and competitive.

2. Blueprint for Smart, Scalable Tech Support:
As agentic AI takes over repetitive support tasks, it can offer proactive issue detection, faster troubleshooting, and contextual recommendations—ideal for lean IT teams in hospitality managing 24/7 guest operations. This tech could significantly reduce downtime and manual intervention in mission-critical systems like booking platforms or payment processing.

3. A Glimpse Into Future Guest Experience Models:
Agentic AI’s capabilities for real-time learning and decision-making foreshadow its potential beyond backend support—think AI concierges, smart service recovery, and personalized guest journeys. For CIOs and CTOs in hospitality, understanding how this tech works in B2B contexts sets the groundwork for innovating B2C guest experiences.

4. Ethical AI is Not Optional:
With data privacy and compliance top of mind in hospitality—especially when dealing with guest data—Cisco’s findings that 99% of organizations demand strong AI governance is a crucial reminder. IT leaders should assess AI vendors not only on performance but also on transparency, control, and ethical standards.

Fingermark  is working towards integrating the NVIDIA AI Blueprint for Visual Search and Summarization (VSS) into its Eyecue platform, helping QSR operators turn video footage into clear, actionable insights at scale.

At the center of Fingermark’s solution is Eyecue, a real-time computer vision platform used by QSRs globally to optimize speed of service and operational performance. A key component within Eyecue is Monitor, an intelligent tool that automatically captures and synchronizes multi-camera footage around key events, such as long drive-thru wait times, service bottlenecks, or staff-related incidents.

Thanks to the introduction of vision language models (VLMs) based on the NVIDIA VILA architecture, Fingermark is working on enhancing Monitor with the ability to automatically analyze, summarize, and tag operational video, reducing hours of manual review to a matter of minutes.

AI-Powered Video Intelligence for QSRs

Monitor was developed to give operators a clearer understanding of what’s happening in real time, and more importantly, why. When a trigger event occurs, for example, a vehicle stops for too long or a sudden slowdown in kitchen output, Monitor pulls relevant footage from inside and outside the restaurant and stores it alongside key data points like timestamps and order details.

With the addition of the VSS blueprint, Monitor will be able to:

• Automatically identify contributing factors such as unavailable staff, miscommunication, or overcrowded areas
• Create AI-generated summaries for every event,
• Add intelligent tags like “staff absent at counter,” “drive-thru backup,” or “order queue stall”
• Enable natural language search of video using intuitive queries like “show me all events where kitchen delays occurred during peak hours”
  
  
  This next step enables QSR teams to act faster, train more effectively, and operate more consistently, all without the burden of manual video review.

Scaling Clarity Across the Network

As Fingermark begins the integration of NVIDIA technology also supports broader strategic initiatives across QSR networks, including:

• Faster investigations and improved resolution of service issues
• Smarter training using categorized, real-world scenarios
• Operational benchmarking between sites using standardized video analysis
• High-quality AI model training, leveraging annotated footage to improve prediction and performance
   

“The future of restaurant operations is proactive, data-driven, and AI-powered,” said Dave Robertson, CTO, Fingermark. “By incorporating NVIDIA’s VSS blueprint into our Eyecue platform, we will be able to help our customers unlock the full potential of their video infrastructure to make better, faster decisions at every level of their business.”

Mirai, a hotel technology company known for helping properties increase direct bookings, has announced a major update to its booking engine. The new global platform is designed to offer a faster, more intuitive experience for guests while giving hotels greater control and flexibility.

Key Points

• Higher Multi-Room Conversion: The engine boosts conversion rates by 56% for multi-room bookings, a segment that represents just 9% of bookings but contributes 18% of total hotel sales.
• Speed and Performance: Engine response times are under two seconds—even on slower connections like those found in rural areas or airports—minimizing drop-offs that typically occur with longer load times.
• Improved User Experience: The new design reduces scrolling by 90% and highlights essential booking information, including cancellation policies, total price, and loyalty program perks.
• Key Functional Features:
  • Visual cart system and guided flow for managing multiple rooms.
  • Built-in OTA price comparison and rate matching.
  • A calendar showing the lowest available rates right from the start.
  • Seamless integration within a hotel’s own domain—no redirects or subdomains.
  • Smart filters that avoid returning empty search results.
  • Display of unavailable rooms to increase urgency and drive action.
• Sales Recovery Tools: In cases where rooms or dates aren’t available, the engine offers alternative options, such as waitlists, flexible dates, or nearby properties in the same group—recovering up to 0.6% of potential lost bookings.
• Customizability: Hotels can tailor how results are shown—from pricing formats to promotional highlights—ensuring the booking engine aligns with each property’s branding and sales strategy.

Why it's Interesting

Mirai, headquartered in Madrid, has traditionally focused on European and Latin American markets. However, its new global booking engine could spark interest among U.S.-based hoteliers looking for advanced, guest-centric booking tools. While elements of Mirai’s approach exist across various platforms, the company’s all-in-one, conversion-optimized solution—designed for speed, multi-room functionality, and direct sales—sets a new benchmark. It also signals a potential shift as more global tech providers eye the U.S. market, potentially shaking up the competitive landscape. Here’s why this rollout matters:

• Multi-Room Focus: Many U.S.-based booking engines still treat multi-room reservations as secondary use cases. Mirai, by contrast, makes this a priority—addressing a clear need for families, group travelers, and suite-oriented urban hotels.
• Mobile Performance: With under-two-second load times even on poor connections, Mirai’s architecture directly supports mobile bookings in environments where network reliability is inconsistent—think rural resorts, roadside hotels, and airport-adjacent properties.
• Direct Booking Support: Built-in OTA comparison tools and real-time rate matching speak to an ongoing priority for U.S. hoteliers: reducing reliance on OTAs and driving more direct bookings.
• Full Design Integration: By embedding directly into a hotel’s domain (rather than redirecting to subdomains), the engine supports better SEO performance and a more cohesive brand experience—particularly important for independent and boutique properties.

Taken together, these features not only address long-standing friction points in the booking process but also reflect a growing expectation among travelers for speed, clarity, and seamless UX. If Mirai expands into North America, its approach could challenge domestic players to elevate their offerings or risk falling behind.

DoorDash has partnered with Wing to offer drone delivery in Charlotte, N.C.

DoorDash customers within about four miles of The Arboretum Shopping Center in southern Charlotte can order from a selection of local and national restaurants and choose to have their items delivered by drone. The lineup includes local brands like Matcha Cafe Maiko and Panera Bread— the city's first national partner available for drone delivery. 

The Charlotte expansion is the next step in a successful partnership between Wing and DoorDash. DoorDash and Wing first launched drone delivery together in Australia in 2022. Since then, the partnership expanded to the U.S., with drone delivery service available to DoorDash customers in parts of Southwest Virginia, the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and now Charlotte. DoorDash and Wing plan to expand to additional neighborhoods later this year.

“Autonomous delivery will help shape the future of local logistics, and we’re proud to introduce drone delivery to Charlotte for the first time with Wing,” said Harrison Shih, Head of Product for DoorDash Labs. “What makes this launch special isn’t just the technology, it’s the experience. Whether it’s your favorite Panera sandwich, a savory snack from DashMart, or a local matcha latte on DoorDash, there’s something special about watching your order arrive by air in minutes. DoorDash and Wing aren’t just delivering faster, we’re delivering what’s next.”

This partnership was born out of DoorDash Labs, DoorDash’s robotics and automation arm. DoorDash Labs focuses on identifying and integrating autonomous solutions that can enhance the customer experience, drive increased demand for local merchants, and create more earning opportunities for Dashers. In addition to Wing, DoorDash also partners with Coco Robotics for sidewalk robot delivery, reinforcing its commitment to building a multi-modal delivery platform designed to support the fastest and most efficient deliveries possible.

“We are committed to continuously redefining convenience and unlocking innovative ways to enhance the Panera experience, and we’re thrilled to partner with DoorDash and Wing on this pilot,” said Meenakshi Nagarajan, Chief Digital Officer, Panera Bread. “This partnership offers a cutting-edge way to deliver the quality and craveability that our guests know and love, right to their doorstep.” 

How it Works

To get started with drone delivery on DoorDash, eligible residents browsing the DoorDash app will notice the “Drone” icon on the homepage of their app. Tapping that will let them browse restaurants eligible for drone delivery.

If the items they choose meet the size and weight criteria, shoppers will have the option to select drone delivery during checkout. After confirming their delivery location, they’ll receive live tracking updates as the drone approaches.

Charlotte residents can check their address for eligibility at wing.com/charlotte. Anyone who isn’t eligible today can join the waitlist to be notified when drone delivery expands to their neighborhood.