Balancing AI and Human Touch in Hospitality: Restaurateur Opinions

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the hospitality industry, but rather than replacing humans, it is enhancing the way services are delivered. AI helps streamline operations, improve customer experience, and optimize decision-making. From chatbots handling basic queries to smart systems managing bookings, room preferences, and feedback, AI is making hospitality more efficient and personalized.

However, hospitality is fundamentally about human connection—warmth, empathy, and the personal touch that machines cannot replicate. A smile at the front desk, a friendly conversation with a server, or the ability to anticipate a guest’s unspoken needs are uniquely human traits. AI lacks emotional intelligence, cultural understanding, and the spontaneity required to create memorable guest experiences.

Instead of seeing AI as a threat, the industry should view it as a powerful support system. By handling repetitive or data-heavy tasks, AI allows human staff to focus more on creativity, guest interaction, and service excellence. Training teams to work alongside AI can lead to a more balanced and efficient hospitality model.

Chef Kishor Singh Sous Chef at Namak Indian Restaurant & Bar, Greenville, US

AI is transforming hospitality, not by replacing the human touch, but by amplifying it. At FES, we see technology as a backstage assistant, not the main act. Whether it’s using AI to forecast demand, reduce waste, or optimize kitchen operations, our goal is to use tech to enhance the guest experience, not automate it out of existence.

Hospitality at its core is about connection, a smile when you walk in, the way your coffee is remembered, or how a cookie can turn your day around. No machine can replicate that feeling. What AI can do is free up our teams from repetitive tasks, so they can focus on what really matters, making people feel seen, heard, and valued.

In a world obsessed with speed, we’re betting on the soul. AI is a tool, not a replacement. And in the right hands, it makes hospitality more personal, not less.

Vidur Mayor, Founder and CEO, FES Cafe

At Yazu Pan Asian Beach Club, we believe hospitality is deeply rooted in human warmth, intuition, and culture. AI can certainly enhance the guest experience—whether it's predicting preferences, personalizing menus, or optimizing operations—but it cannot replicate the soul of true service. Hospitality is a dialogue, not a transaction. It's the smile of a server who remembers your last visit, the intuition of a chef who adjusts a dish to your taste without being asked, the feeling of being seen and valued. That emotional intelligence is human. AI should be seen as an enabler, not a replacement. Let it automate the mundane so we can elevate the meaningful. The future we envision at Yazu Goa is one where technology enhances efficiency, but the heartbeat of the experience remains human—curated with care, connection, and creativity.

Chef Tenzin Khechok - Yazu Goa

At Olive, we believe AI should never replace hospitality’s human soul, it should elevate it. In our Open Hotels, AI helps us reimagine operations by removing inefficiencies and freeing our team from repetitive, back-end tasks. This shift empowers staff to focus entirely on what truly matters: being present for the guest. It’s a high-tech, high-touch approach where technology handles the mundane, and humans deliver the meaningful. From 24/7 virtual check-ins to predictive maintenance and dynamic pricing, AI ensures seamlessness behind the scenes. But on the front lines, it’s still our people who create emotional value. Guests don’t remember an app, they remember how they were made to feel. With AI as a quiet force multiplier, our team now spends more time in roles that require empathy, creativity, and personal presence. We’ve seen satisfaction scores rise as a direct result. The future of hospitality isn’t about choosing between humans or machines, it’s about building systems where each does what it does best. And when designed with intention, AI becomes not a substitute, but a powerful ally in creating more human, heartfelt, and memorable experiences.

Kahraman Yigit, Co-founder & CEO, Olive by Embassy

AI has bevy of potential to change the future of hospitality but conserving ‘human touch’ or oversight of manpower elements is remarkable and also extremely crucial while mounting towards AI-driven culture. AI power to remodel hospitality by altering guest experience through boosting efficiency by identifying complex patterns of vast critical datasets and records, heist the time-consuming aspects with help of algorithms and models. Nevertheless, Chabot to voice assistance and smart fund conceptualizing tools can result to less manual working which cannot trammel the massive leaps that could have been taken in the recent times. We being into this industry need to be optimistic with AI discovery which shall boom the mushroom corners of industry yet not explored by humans but at the same time research needs careful observation considering human elements as burgeon of even modest malfunction can change the whole game in revenue generation.

Vibhanshu Mishra, CEO & Founder, Chalu Aapna Desi Chinese & Banaraswala