“Are you talkin’ to me?” Hotel mirrors to start talking back…
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Talking to mirrors is not always considered the height of mental stability. From ‘The Shining’ to ‘Taxi Driver’ and even ‘Snow White’, mirrors in popular culture are often portrayed as being a little, well, disturbing.
But soon, hotel guests could be actively encouraged to engage their in-room mirror in conversion – and they will even get a reply.
Panasonic and IBM have unveiled a new “digital concierge” solution for the hotel industry. This will see Watson, IBM’s talking artificial intelligence solution, incorporated into a digital mirror. Hotel guests can then use the mirror to obtain a host of hotel and local area information, such as requesting room service, ordering transportation and checking the weather.
“Panasonic has identified a need for this and several other kinds of connected solutions in the hospitality industry,” explained Yasuji Enokido, president of Panasonic’s AVC Networks Company. “Working with IBM, we plan to further implement our connected solutions vision while making use of Watson intelligence to provide end users with more natural cognitive functionality.”
Bruce Anderson, global managing director at IBM Electronics Industry, added that the new digital concierge would enable hotels to provide “highly personalised experiences and recommendations”, which would help increase brand loyalty.
In addition to the mirror, Panasonic and IBM will also partner on ‘LinkRay’ – a new solution that allows users to automatically receive content from digital signage simply by pointing their mobile device at it. This is expected to improve the provision of location-based services.
The Panasonic-IBM digital concierge is on display at CES 2017, the technology event in Las Vegas.
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