For the last two years Hilton and IBM have teamed up to pilot a smart robot that acts as a hotel concierge, answering guests’ questions and learning as it works.

The NAO humanoid robot from Softbank Robotics is designed to interact with hotel guests and answer questions about hotel amenities, local attractions and dining options. The robot uses IBM’s Watson machine-learning APIs, like speech to text, text to speech and its natural language classifier. The more guests interact with the robot, the more it learns, adapts and improves its recommendations. Watson helps the robot understand and respond naturally to the needs and interests of hotel guests leading to deeper guest engagement, improving customer service and satisfaction.