Generative AI is no longer a future concept for the transportation, hospitality and services industry. It's a present-day reality. Explore the key questions leaders are asking as they move from ambition to action, creating more immersive, personal and effective customer experiences while unlocking efficiency.
Reimagining transportation, hospitality and services with GenAI
The transportation, hospitality and services sectors are at a pivotal moment. Generative AI (GenAI) is no longer an experimental concept but an unprecedented opportunity to drive revenue, create unforgettable customer experiences, and increase efficiency.
We connected with our transportation, hospitality and services GenAI leaders to get their perspective on where this new technology is driving meaningful progress, what’s needed to scale with confidence, and how to prepare for new advances like agentic AI. Here’s what they shared:
1. What are some high-value areas where GenAI can accelerate growth across the transportation, hospitality and services sectors?
While the highest-value use cases ultimately depend on the organization, clear patterns are emerging across this category. The primary objectives for clients often revolve around three core goals: transforming service from a cost center into a revenue driver, personalizing customer experiences, and reducing the cost to serve while driving increased loyalty and lifetime customer value. GenAI is proving to be a powerful tool to achieve all three. We can categorize these opportunities into a few key areas:
2. What are the essential factors to successfully scale GenAI implementation in transportation and hospitality?
Moving from pilot projects to scalable, enterprise-wide implementation requires identifying the use cases that will support true brand differentiation. How can GenAI be used not just for workplace efficiency, but to craft a uniquely valuable customer experience? In hospitality, where customer engagement periods are often longer than in retail, the customer needs to feel known across every touchpoint, and the opportunity for AI-enabled personalization becomes critical to executing at scale. Scaling successfully means identifying the friction and frustration points. Automation can smooth out the transactional steps, allowing human employees to focus on high-touch, high-value interactions that build loyalty and lifetime customer value.
3. How should leaders plan for new technologies like agentic AI and for further GenAI investments?
The pace of change is rapid, and today’s cutting-edge technology is tomorrow’s standard. Leaders should view GenAI not as a one-off project, but as a foundational element of a broader innovation strategy. This means creating a strategic front door for GenAI conversations that aligns with larger business initiatives and end-to-end experience transformations.
Planning for technologies like agentic AI—where AI can act autonomously to perform complex tasks—involves building a flexible and adaptable framework. This starts with the data and knowledge management systems being implemented today. By creating robust knowledge bases and clean data ecosystems, organizations are not only powering current GenAI applications but also laying the groundwork for more advanced agentic systems that can deliver sophisticated services like a fully autonomous hotel concierge or a personal digital travel assistant.
4. What’s important for organizations to consider when scaling GenAI in transportation and hospitality?
As organizations scale, it's crucial to remember that context is king. The most successful GenAI strategies solve for the organization's challenges, customer base, and operational structure. Leaders must consider the diversity of needs and perspectives within their own operations to tailor solutions that will be trusted, adopted, and truly valued by employees and customers alike.
Furthermore, scaling involves navigating external factors, including regulatory hurdles, which can vary significantly across different services and regions. A phased approach that allows for experimentation, learning and adaptation is often more successful than a rigid and rapid large-scale implementation. This also allows organizations to measure adaptation as they uncover implementation success and challenges, ensuring that the technology is truly augmenting the human workforce and enhancing the customer experience, not just replacing tasks or creating temporary novelty.
Cost models are evolving rapidly for GenAI and are not easy to estimate for the future. Companies will need to consider how they will approach spend on GenAI in order to drive value that is commensurate with the investment. Many companies are surprised by how much they end up under- or over-utilizing their GenAI query capacity.
5. What are some recent examples of successful implementations of GenAI in transportation and hospitality that you’ve encountered?
We are seeing exciting pilots and implementations across the industry that move beyond basic automation to create genuine differentiation. For example:
Your green light is waiting
By focusing on high-value use cases, building a scalable and strategic framework, and always prioritizing the customer experience, leaders can move confidently from exploration to execution. The journey starts with identifying the right opportunities and taking that first step toward getting the green light.
About the authors
Oliver Page is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP. He leads Digital across the Travel, Hospitality and Services industries and co-leads the Loyalty Market offering. With more than 18 years of digital transformation experience, Oliver guides senior executives to help them capitalize on their customer and employee experience investments.
Timothy McDougal is a managing director with Deloitte Consulting LLP and brings more than 22 years of experience to his work in the optimization of customer interactions and the transformation of the contact center. He has advised clients across industry how to balance strategic objectives, the practical realities of contact center operations, and promises of new technology.
Jeffrey Tull is a senior manager with Deloitte Consulting LLP. He leads design-driven strategy and innovation to drive growth, engage customers and transform organizations. He also collaborates with teams to generate proprietary customer insight and market foresight to inform design for new services, systems and experiences.
Abishek Singh, Matthew Josephson and Megan Goldenberg contributed to this perspective.
