Why Cloudbeds Built Its Own AI to Personalize Travel at Scale

As the CEO and Co-Founder of Cloudbeds, Adam Harris has long been focused on how technology can help hotels deliver better, more connected guest experiences. Now, as AI redefines business and customer decision-making, Harris is leading one of hospitality’s boldest experiments in sector-specific artificial intelligence.

At the heart of Cloudbeds’ strategy is a belief that generic AI tools simply won’t cut it. For Adam Harris, AI isn’t just about smarter pricing. It’s about building a responsive, personalized ecosystem where technology doesn’t just automate, it understands.

Ahead of his appearance at the Skift Data + AI Summit, Harris shares how Cloudbeds is building AI that actually speaks the language of hotels, why hospitality needs to stop treating AI like a plugin, and how machine-readable supply is about to power the next booking revolution.

“At Cloudbeds, we view AI as the key to unlocking personalized travel experiences at scale. However, AI must go beyond generic models to truly make an impact in the hospitality sector. Traditional AI systems were designed with general use in mind, lacking the deep understanding of industry-specific needs—especially in hospitality, where less than 0.004% of training data comes from our sector.

This is where our approach differs. We've developed our own AI model—a causal-neural large language model (LLM) specifically designed for hospitality. For travelers, this means smarter pricing, better availability, and more seamless, personalized experiences tailored to their preferences and booking behaviors. For hoteliers, it means reducing guesswork and gaining more time to focus on delivering memorable stays. By designing an AI engine that speaks the language of hospitality, we help drive intelligent growth and free hoteliers to focus on what matters most: their guests.”

“The days of fragmented, price-only revenue management are over. Traditional AI in hospitality often focuses on pricing with limited insight or accuracy, but we wanted to change that. Our new revenue tool powered by Cloudbeds Intelligence, Signals, analyzes over 4 billion data points every hour—from bookings to competitor rates, local events, and guest reviews. It processes this data to deliver forecasts with industry-leading accuracy at over 95%, up to 180 days in advance, along with smart pricing and marketing recommendations to fill demand days.

By unifying revenue management, guest marketing, and operational insights in one cohesive system, Signals empowers hotels to act on the full picture. Rather than relying on a narrow focus on price, hoteliers can make data-driven decisions that optimize their entire business, creating a smarter, more responsive environment for both guests and staff.”

“The biggest mistake the industry makes is treating AI as something you can simply 'apply.' AI is not a plug-and-play solution; it’s only as effective as the data it’s trained on. Most AI models available today weren’t built with hospitality in mind, and with less than 0.004% of foundational AI data coming from the travel sector, it’s clear that these models are often working with educated guesses rather than industry-specific insights.

At Cloudbeds, we didn’t just apply AI—we built it from the ground up, specifically for hospitality. Our AI is powered by a dual approach: a causal AI engine that processes billions of real hotel signals every hour, and a hospitality-specific LLM that’s trained on millions of data points from hoteliers and revenue managers. This allows our system to not only analyze data but to truly understand and reason like a hotelier, delivering insights that are relevant and actionable.”

“As AI agents and natural language models reshape how travelers search and book, the value shifts from who presents the options to who owns the options. Cloudbeds is uniquely positioned to feed this new discovery layer, powering direct connections, real-time availability, and dynamic pricing across emerging AI-driven platforms. If hoteliers act quickly to make their supply machine-readable and integrated, AI will amplify their business in ways that were previously unimaginable.”

“The interface era is dead. We're witnessing the fundamental rewiring of hospitality through pure science. The companies still obsessing over polish while ignoring the algorithmic foundation are about to get obliterated. When AI agents take over more responsibilities (and they will), what happens to traffic patterns? Hotels, however, will still be there, still be full, just getting customers through entirely different channels.”

As the travel industry scrambles to adapt to generative AI, leaders like Adam Harris aren’t just using AI; they’re redefining it for their industry. His appearance at the Skift Data + AI Summit is a must-attend for anyone looking to understand how sector-specific intelligence is changing the rules of the game.

June 4, 2025 - NEW YORK CITY