There’s a joke in here about many concierges resembling robots already, but out of respect for those who take pride in their work we’ll refrain from making that connection.

Guests popping in at the Hilton McLean hotel in Virginia will now be treated to a rather different experience at the front desk, a robot called Connie assisting those staying at the venue. It’s still a work in progress however , something Arstechnica makes clear:

…Connie helps guests navigate around the hotel and find restaurants or tourist attractions in the area—but it is not able to check them in just yet.

Connie’s physical support is Nao, a French-made 58cm-tall android that has become the go-to platform for educational and customer care tasks, thanks to its relative affordability (about £6,000 or $9,000). But the concierge’s brain is based on IBM’s flagship AI program Watson—the Jeopardy!-winning system engineered to understand people’s questions and answer them in the best way possible.

In this case, Watson’s main role is natural language processing, which enables the bot to welcome guests, grasp their spoken queries, and answer accordingly. The information on local attractions and interesting sites is actually channelled from the database of travel platform WayBlazer, also an IBM’s partner. Connie is also designed to improve itself through interactions with human customers, learning from frequent queries how to fine-tune its recommendations.

If you’re thinking that this sounds oddly familiar you might remember Japan’s Henn-na Hotel, a hotel manned almost completely by robots.

One would imagine we have a long way to go before something like this threatens the livelihood of service industry staff around the world, although a little kick up the backside and a gentle reminder to be on their toes never hurts.

[source:arstechnica]