The chatbot that always answers at three in the morning is not doing your job better than you

How many times have you looked, with a mixture of relief and unease, at the automated chat answering a guest at three in the morning while you sleep. Relief because the message doesn't go unanswered. Unease because, deep down, we all know that reply is not the same thing as when the receptionist — or the owner — responds in person.

On this subject, a reflection by psychologist Ameya Canovi has been circulating recently, and it starts from a point that is uncomfortable for anyone working with artificial intelligence: one of psychology's most precious secrets is silence. It is in shared silence, Canovi says, that something important happens between two people, whereas a product that is always available creates no space, sets no boundaries, draws no perimeter. The simulation of care, she concludes, is not care.

What does this have to do with hospitality

More than it might seem. Over the last two years we have filled the sector with tools designed to be ever-present: chatbots that respond 24/7, virtual assistants that manage the pre- and post-stay, systems that anticipate a guest's questions before they've even asked them. It is all objectively useful and none of us would go back to managing reservations by phone alone.

But infinite availability carries a cost we rarely put on the balance sheet: it devalues the moments when a human does respond. If a guest knows they will receive an instant, correct answer from an automated system regardless, what distinguishes the experience at a small property — where the relationship with the people running it is real — from that of a large chain where everything is automated in exactly the same way?

What I actually do, in practice

After various experiments, at the Oasi I chose to automate everything transactional — opening hours, practical directions, confirmations — and to leave deliberately "silent" everything relational. I never reply to a personal message in a by-the-book tone, even when I'm in a rush, because that slightly slower, slightly more human response is precisely the perimeter Canovi describes: it is there that the guest perceives they are talking to a person who has chosen to give them attention, not to a system that could not do otherwise.

The strategic point

The mistake I see most often in the sector is treating automation as a uniform upgrade to the guest experience, rather than as a deliberate choice about what to automate and what not to. The properties that will stand out in the coming years will not be those with the most sophisticated chatbot, but those that have consciously decided where to draw a line — where the response must remain human, even at the cost of arriving a few hours later. Because that delay, paradoxically, is what gives value to everything else.

After all, this is still hospitality…