At its core, agentic AI operates by constantly looping through a cycle of reasoning and acting until a job is done. It receives a goal from you, formulates a plan to achieve it, executes the necessary steps, and observes the results to see if further adjustments are needed.
NB: This is an article from SiteMinder, one of our Expert Partners
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To understand the mechanics, it helps to visualise the workflow that an AI agent follows. This is often described as the Goal→Plan→Act→Observe→Adjust loop:
- Goal: You give the AI a broad objective, such as “fill my remaining rooms for next Tuesday”.
- Plan: The agent analyses your current data and decides on a strategy, perhaps recommending a last-minute flash sale or a targeted email campaign.
- Act: It connects to your systems to create the promotion, update your rates and send out emails.
- Observe: It monitors the outcome to see if bookings are picking up.
- Adjust: If bookings remain slow, it might suggest extending the sale or tweaking the discount.
Crucially, agentic AI doesn’t just have a brain – it has ‘arms and legs’ in the form of digital integrations. This technology can connect directly to tools like your property management system (PMS), channel manager and booking engine, and control them. It can check real-time room availability, update rates across all your booking channels, and follow up with potential guests who abandoned the direct booking process, without you having to lift a finger.
But critically, this autonomy doesn’t mean that an AI agent runs wild and free without supervision.
While agentic AI can handle complex workflows on its own, it operates strictly within whatever guardrails you set: you define things like budget limits, an approved tone of voice for guest messages, and the maximum level of discount that it can apply.
In this way, you can think of an AI agent as a highly capable junior manager; it does the heavy lifting, but you always define the strategy and rules.
What are the benefits of agentic AI for hotels?
Agentic AI can transform how you run your hotel by acting as a proactive digital employee that works 24/7/365. AI agents can automatically and consistently take care of repetitive, lower-value tasks, freeing up your human staff to focus on the higher-value work, like developing business strategies and delivering meaningful guest experiences.
Agentic AI trends hoteliers should know:
- AI agent use is exploding: The travel & hospitality sector saw agentic AI use grow at an average rate of 133% per month in the first half of 2025.
- Huge cost savings are ahead: Industry forecasts project that by 2029, agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer-service issues, reducing operational costs by ~30%.
- Early adopters are winning: According to a 2025 industry report, hotels using AI reported improved operational efficiency, personalised guest services, and easier booking management.
The main value of agentic AI is that it automates entire multi-step workflows by bridging the gap between systems like your property management system (PMS), channel manager and direct booking engine.
