Virtual Agent Coordination for Hospitality Service Requests
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional customer service and management tasks in hospitality industries are inefficient and error-prone due to manual interactions among human agents, leading to under-utilization of resources and negatively impacting guest experience and business optimization.
Innovation Solution
An intelligent service/management platform utilizing AI/ML-based virtual agents, coordinated by a Virtual Agent Coordination Engine (VACE), that decomposes free-form requests, selects appropriate agents, and aggregates outputs to generate responses, prompts, and triggers actions, thereby automating service functions and management tasks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If manual coordination is used among human agents, then service tasks can be completed with human judgment and flexibility, but efficiency is reduced and resources are under-utilized
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service through virtual agents that autonomously handle service tasks without requiring human agents to manually coordinate. The virtual agents independently process requests, make decisions, and execute actions based on their programmed capabilities and the information available in the system, thereby eliminating the need for manual human coordination while maintaining service quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical system of manual human coordination with an automated electronic system. Human agents manually interacting with each other and computerized tools is substituted by virtual agents that electronically coordinate and execute tasks automatically, thereby increasing service efficiency while maintaining operational ease.
2Ease of operation
If manual coordination is used among human agents, then service tasks can be completed with human judgment, but errors increase and guest experience deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Virtual agents autonomously execute service tasks without human intervention, eliminating human errors in task completion. The system self-manages the coordination and execution of service requests, ensuring consistent and accurate service delivery that improves reliability while maintaining ease of operation for guests.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates feedback mechanisms where virtual agents continuously monitor service outcomes and adjust their operations accordingly. This feedback loop ensures high reliability by detecting and correcting errors automatically, while maintaining seamless service delivery without requiring manual human judgment.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple virtual agents are selected to handle requests, then service quality and coverage are improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple virtual agents into a coordinated system where they work together to handle service requests. By combining the capabilities of multiple specialized agents (e.g., reservation agent, concierge agent, housekeeping agent) into a unified virtual team, the system achieves comprehensive service coverage while managing complexity through integrated coordination rather than separate independent systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual agent system is designed with multi-functionality where a single virtual agent can perform multiple service functions or where the coordination engine can dynamically assign different functions to different agents based on request type. This universality allows the system to handle diverse service requests with a flexible agent team, improving adaptability without proportionally increasing system complexity.
4Productivity
If automated virtual agent system is implemented, then productivity and accuracy are improved, but initial resource investment and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual agent system is designed to be self-configuring and self-managing, reducing the need for complex human intervention in system operations. Once deployed, the agents autonomously handle service requests and coordinate among themselves, thereby achieving high productivity while the initial complexity of setting up self-service capabilities is offset by long-term operational simplicity.
Data Source
AI summary
The disclosure relates generally to an intelligent interactive platform based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) components for adaptively and selectively invoking multiple virtual agents for service and service management optimization. This disclosure particularly adapts such an intelligent system to a context of hospitality service provisioning and optimization. A Virtual Agent Coordination Engine (VACE) based on a plurality of language/voice/image models is disclosed for decomposing free-form requests from customers and service personnels via a variety of access applications into request items and for adaptively selecting a subset of virtual engines to handle the requests according to the request items. The VACE is further configured to aggregate outputs from the subset of virtual agents to intelligently generate a plurality of answers/alerts/prompts/action triggers, again, based on a plurality of AI/ML models.