- Integrated casino resorts are challenged with inefficient business operations and are uncertain how to effectively address them.
- Adopting new technology and achieving exponential IT status requires a strategic approach and alignment between IT and the business.
- AI and ML are typically significant investments. Smaller organizations with limited resources will require a comprehensive business case to get buy-in.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Integrated casino resorts that invest in AI and ML will foster exponential innovation to improve operational efficiency, guest experiences, and data-driven decision-making, ultimately developing existing and new business processes.
Impact and Result
- Pull inspiration from a curated collection of best-in-class AI and ML use cases to drive the initiative ideation process.
- Concepts can be helpful when designing transformation roadmaps, despite different implementation methods.
- Our analysis offers additional guidance on return on investment (ROI) guidelines, primary sources of value, and more.
- Pulling best practices from anonymized use cases increases the odds of successful value capture.
AI/ML Use Case Library for Integrated Casino Resorts
Leverage AI and ML to improve business processes and guest experiences.
Analyst Perspective
Achieve exponential innovation with AI and ML
The integrated casino resort industry is experiencing unprecedented change and disruption due to the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). In this new era, integrated casinos require a digital strategy to guide their AI and ML transformation journey.
With that aspiration in place, gaming and integrated resorts business and technology leaders must work together to map out tactical and actionable plans to support an organization's strategic goals and reach exponential IT status. An effective AI and ML transformation plan executed within the next one to two years can define the next one to two decades.
Integrated casino resorts must balance the need for digital technology investment with affordable service. At Info-Tech, our goal is to help leaders accelerate the identification and development of tactical AI and ML transformation initiatives to enable your digital transformation and exponential IT journey.
Elizabeth Silva
Senior Research Analyst, Gaming, Hospitality, Sports & Entertainment Industries
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive Summary
Challenge
- Integrated casino resorts are challenged by inefficient business operations and are uncertain how to effectively address them.
- Adopting new technology and achieving exponential IT status requires a strategic approach and alignment between IT and the business.
- AI and ML are typically significant investments, making this a challenge for smaller organizations with limited resources and requiring a comprehensive business case to be made.
Common Obstacles
- Obtaining alignment on technology requires a strategic approach between IT and the business to develop value.
- A comprehensive business case is required to prove the value of the significant investments proposed.
- Many AI and ML initiatives are often delayed and over budget, leading to unsuccessful projects.
- Identifying industry-leading best practices can be helpful in driving early ideation sessions if the business is available for it.
Info-Tech's Approach
- Pull inspiration from a curated collection of best-in-class AI and ML use cases to drive the initiative ideation process.
- Concepts can be helpful when designing transformation roadmaps, despite different implementation methods.
- Our analysis offers additional guidance on return on investment (ROI) guidelines, primary sources of value, and more.
- Pulling best practices from anonymized use cases increases the odds of successful value capture.
Info-Tech Insight
Integrated casino resorts that invest in AI and ML will foster exponential innovation to improve operational efficiency, guest experiences, and data-driven decision making, ultimately developing existing and new business processes.
Generative AI is an innovation in ML
Generative AI (Gen AI)
A form of ML which can respond to prompts by generating new outputs based on training data. Depending on its foundational model, a Gen AI platform will provide different modalities and resulting use case applications.
Machine learning (ML)
An approach to implementing AI where the system is instructed to search for patterns in a data set and then make predictions based on that set. This way, the system iteratively "learns" to provide more accurate content over time (think of Google's search recommendations).
Artificial intelligence (AI)
A field of computer science that focuses on building systems to imitate human behavior. Not all AI systems have learning behavior, as many operate on preset rules (e.g. customer service chatbots).
Info-Tech Insight
Many vendors have jumped on Gen AI as the latest marketing buzzword. When vendors claim to offer Gen AI functionality, pin down what exactly is generative about it. The solution must be able to generate new outputs – not just predictive ones.
Diverse AI capabilities will drive value
Integrated casino resorts are implementing a wide range of AI capabilities as Gen AI continues to evolve.
Integrated casino resorts can differentiate themselves using their vast and diverse data to unlock the value of AI.
Gen AI in the gaming market is set to surpass US$7.1M by 2032.
Source: Market.us, 2023
AI and ML have significant guest experience benefits
- Intuitive and simplified guest engagement for more immersive experiences. Streamline guest interactions using AI to analyze large amounts of guest data to generate insights and personalized content, improving service quality and anticipating guest needs.
- Implementation can be delivered through multiple channels to enable seamless experiences. AI tools can enhance the omnichannel experience, delivering consistency across every touchpoint by considering the digital data footprint each guest leaves behind in every engagement.
- Enhanced convenience and accessibility for all guests reducing friction points. As consumer demand for quick service intensifies, AI offers a valuable solution, producing relevant information with better accuracy and minimized response times.
- Cater to digital natives' needs and wants in a digital-first world. Digital natives, born between 1997 and 2012, fully embrace technology and are eager to incorporate AI and ML into their daily lives. Organizations can benefit by plugging AI into guest interactions.
48% of technology leaders plan to use AI to create highly personalized experiences.
Source: Oracle, n.d.
45% increase in spend-per-customer with AI.
Source: Oracle, n.d.
There is broad AI applicability for employees
- Productivity enhancement. Reduce manual effort and repetitive tasks to save time and costs that could be spent on other important processes including guest interactions.
- Democratized data analytics. Employees can improve self-reliance by incorporating these into daily workflows, creating tangible value within their applications, and improving practicability.
- Employee empowerment. AI enhances employee training which decreases performance gaps. This will also yield more relevant results, allowing them to make better decisions in a fraction of the time.
- Unlock digital value. Drive new low-cost, high-volume, data-driven business models. There is clear evidence of applicable use cases that can support interactions between guests and employees.
AI will be leveraged as a platform for business
Disrupt the traditional operating model and strategy. IT and business strategies should merge and holistically consider the impact of technology and how it enhances the vision of the integrated casino resort through an integrated business and technology leader. This leader should enable the following elements to leverage AI as a platform.
Project and portfolio management
Project and portfolio management tasks will become AI across the entire business developing a deeper understanding of resources, capacity, skills, and quality to improve resource allocation and accountability for projects.
Service planning and architecture
Technology and business capabilities will no longer be separate. Co-create platforms with the business to enable streamlined services and enhanced guest experiences through automation, such as Gen AI chatbots for conversational booking.
Infrastructure and operations
Embed AI into the business to support and provision operations to indicate where time-consuming and manual work can be eliminated. Improve productivity levels within the corporate or front-line environment, such as automation of night audit processes.
Applications
Casinos and hotels must develop an aligned platform of products to properly enable AI/ML capabilities and provide enhanced and seamless stakeholder journeys (e.g. utilizing Gen AI chatbots to service multiple areas of the business through an omnichannel strategy).
Innovations in AI are beneficial to integrated casinos
AI is not new by any means, but gaming and hospitality organizations have been aware of its growing potential since 2017. AI is predicted to contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. $6.6 trillion of the total contribution will come from improved productivity and $9.1 trillion will come from AI adoption side effects (PwC, 2017).
Philip Rothaus, Managing Director for Data & AI - Alvarez & Marsal's Travel, Hospitality & Leisure Practice
"The opportunity with AI is in augmenting and embedding new insights into existing processes. It's about supporting your people by automating tasks in their jobs that aren't value-added so that they can focus on what they can do best."
Source: Hotel Operations, 2023
Ingrid Jarret, CEO – BC Hotel Association
"There is value in AI, because it frees up staff time, and sometimes can provide improvements in helping customers in ways that people cannot. Hoteliers will use AI, but it will not replace humans, as we are the people in business."
Source: Business in Vancouver, 2023
Brian Kirkland, CIO – Choice Hotels
"Generative AI could help guests find answers faster about properties and help Choice Hotels franchisees figure out the right type of business strategy or even the policies around how we should run our business."
Source: Skift, 2023
Frank Wolfe, CEO – Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP)
"ChatGPT and other similar language models have the potential to greatly impact the hospitality industry by automating and improving many customer-facing tasks by eliminating repetitive tasks, providing 24/7 customer service, and improving the overall customer experience."
Source: Hospitality Net, 2023
Info-Tech's approach and team can help irrespective of where you are in your digital journey
Measure the value of this document
Document objective
Highlight best-in-class use cases to spur the initiative planning and ideation process.
Measuring your success against that objective
There are multiple qualitative and quantitative, direct and indirect metrics with which you can measure the progress of your initiative pipeline's development. Some examples of this are:
- Increased initiative pipeline value
- Number of capabilities impacted by initiative pipeline
- Enhanced understanding of initiatives' impact aligned to organizational capability map
- Better understanding of which sources of value are being addressed or under-addressed in the organization's initiative pipeline
See Establish Your Transformation Infrastructure in the Digital Transformation Center for more details