This whole thing is funny. I mean yes, it can take "hours and hours" to assign rooms...maybe if you're working at Orlando World Center. At the average North American chain property that's 100-ish rooms, it's about five minutes to go through the arrivals, scan any notes and assign a room. Hotels will never fully give up their ability to control their own inventory "their way". My guess is that this is going to be like Hilton's proclamation earlier this year regarding late checkout "standardization" except for the fine print that properties can opt out of participating and if they do choose to participate, they can choose the time limits, number of rooms/room types that qualify for late checkout which will create a massive patchwork quilt of "standards".

While AI is 100% coming for desk jobs and in the not too distant future, 24/7 front desks will permanently cease to exist in their current format, 100% guaranteed, this corporate boilerplate is BS on multiple levels.