More Ways to Transform Your Hotel Operations
Expert insights, case studies, and strategies from hotels using AI to boost revenue and delight guests
Published · By HelloShift Team
Short answer: the right AI phone answering system for a hotel depends on what happens after the call. HelloShift, Canary AI Voice, Conduit, Akia, SendSquared, Lance, and KITT all answer hotel calls 24/7 with an AI voice agent. They differ on whether the agent can book rooms against your PMS, how it hands calls to staff, what the rest of the platform does, and whether the price is published. This guide compares them on those points, using each vendor’s own website as the source.
Disclosure: we build HelloShift, one of the products compared here. Every claim about another vendor links to that vendor’s own page or to press coverage, checked October 1, 2026. Where a vendor does not state something, we say so rather than guess.
The phone is still where guests go when something is urgent or complicated, and it is the channel front desks most often miss. In 15 months of real guest calls answered by HelloShift’s AI voice agent, about 75% were handled without a transfer to a person, and about 1 in 4 arrived outside typical 8am-to-6pm front-desk hours (full data brief). The most common reasons guests called were to reach a person (about 27%), in-stay requests like housekeeping or room access (about 19%), questions about an existing reservation (about 17%), and new bookings or availability (about 14%).
That mix is why the comparison below goes beyond whether a product can talk. A hotel voice agent needs to route people, create work for housekeeping and maintenance, and see live reservations and availability.
| Product | Built for | Staff handoff | Live PMS booking | Beyond voice | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HelloShift | Hotels (plus vacation rentals) | Rings staff first; AI answers only when no one can (DialFirst) | Yes, built per PMS (Mews and others) | Guest messaging, check-in, housekeeping, staff tasks, preventive maintenance | Published: voice on Guest+ ($2.50/room/mo) and Pro ($4.00/room/mo), billed annually |
| Canary AI Voice | Hotels | Routes calls to your teams | Books and modifies reservations; PMS not named on the voice page | Check-in, messaging, upsells, authorizations, tipping, mobile keys | Quote-only |
| Conduit | Hotels and short-term rentals | Transfers conversations | Not confirmed on its voice pages | Unified inbox incl. OTA threads, guest portal, tasks (top plan); housekeeping listed as coming soon | Per unit with AI credits; unit not defined for hotels (ask for a quote) |
| Akia | Hotels and vacation rentals | Hands off to front desk, housekeeping, maintenance, or manager | Reads reservations (Mews, Cloudbeds, StayNTouch, Guesty, Hostaway) | Inbox, digital check-in, upsells, tasks | Quote-only; voice on the top Max plan |
| SendSquared | Vacation rentals, hotels, resorts (CRM-first) | Warm transfer | Yes; 12+ PMS named | CRM, two-way SMS, marketing automation | Published bands: $500-$1,500/mo + usage for up to 50 keys |
| Lance | Hotels | Rings your existing PBX phones and extensions | PMS not required; none named | Housekeeping board, scheduling, tasks, maintenance | Quote-only |
| KITT (The Hotels Network) | Hotels | Sends conversation summaries to the hotel | Handles booking inquiries and reservations | Part of a direct-booking personalization suite | Quote-only |
Checked September 30, 2026 against each vendor’s website (Conduit rechecked October 1). Features and prices change, so confirm with the vendor before you buy.
HelloShift is a hotel operations platform where AI voice sits in the same app as guest messaging, contactless check-in, housekeeping, staff tasks, and preventive maintenance. Calls ring your team first, and the AI picks up only when no one can: overflow, after hours, or while staff are helping someone in person. It detects and answers in the caller’s language, records and transcribes every call into the same inbox as guest texts, and can check live availability and book rooms on the call where the PMS integration supports it (these are built per PMS; Mews is one). A call about towels becomes a housekeeping task in the same system.
Pricing: published per room. AI voice is included on Guest+ at $2.50 per room per month and on Pro at $4.00, billed annually, with no AI credits (pricing).
Best for: hotels that want the phone, texting, and back-of-house on one system with a predictable price.
Canary Technologies’ AI Voice covers front desk, concierge, central reservations, and booking calls. Canary says it can book stays, modify reservations, offer upsells, and route calls to your teams (Canary AI Voice). Voice sits inside Canary’s wider guest-journey suite (check-in, messaging, upsells, authorizations, tipping, mobile keys). Canary does not run housekeeping natively; it hands that work to Flexkeeping (Canary + Flexkeeping).
Pricing: quote-only across its Core, Advanced, and Pro plans (Canary pricing).
Best for: hotels already using Canary for check-in or authorizations that want voice from the same vendor. See our Canary Technologies comparison.
Conduit sells AI agents for hotels and vacation rentals. Its voice agents answer front-desk, amenity, restaurant, and group-sales calls (Conduit), and its inbox pulls SMS, WhatsApp, email, calls, social messages, and OTA threads into one place. Most of its listed PMS integrations are vacation-rental platforms. Conduit describes itself as not a maintenance system (“Conduit Is Not a CMMS”), and its Operations product for housekeeping, maintenance, and inspections is listed as coming soon on its site.
Pricing: per unit with a monthly allowance of AI credits (Conduit pricing). The page does not define a unit or what a credit buys, so ask for a written quote for your room count.
Best for: vacation-rental portfolios whose guest conversations happen mostly in OTA threads. See our Conduit comparison.
Akia’s voice agent answers calls around the clock and hands off to the front desk, maintenance, housekeeping, or manager on duty, and it reads reservations from PMS systems including Mews, Cloudbeds, StayNTouch, Guesty, and Hostaway (Akia Voice). The wider platform covers a guest inbox, digital check-in with ID verification, and upsells.
Pricing: quote-only. AI Voice is listed on the top Max plan only (Akia pricing).
Best for: properties already on Akia for messaging that are ready for its top tier. See our Akia comparison.
SendSquared is a hospitality CRM with AI voice, a unified inbox, and marketing automation, aimed at vacation-rental, hotel, and resort operators. Its voice agent works 24/7 in 30+ languages with warm transfer and live PMS sync for availability, rates, and reservations, and it texts from the same number guests call (SendSquared AI Voice). It names more than a dozen PMS integrations, including Cloudbeds, StayNTouch, Mews, Guesty, Hostaway, and Streamline.
Pricing: published bands of $500 to $1,500 a month plus usage for up to 50 keys, and $1,500 to $5,000 a month for 50 to 200 keys.
Best for: vacation-rental-heavy portfolios that want voice inside a marketing CRM.
Lance connects over a SIP trunk alongside the hotel’s existing phone system, so transfers ring the phones and extensions already in place (Lance AI front desk). It supports 99+ languages, can create housekeeping work orders during a call, and texts follow-ups from the hotel’s number. Lance says a PMS integration is not required and that it never handles cardholder data.
Pricing: quote-only.
Best for: hotels with an existing PBX that want the AI to sit inside it rather than replace call routing.
KITT is an AI guest service agent from The Hotels Network, a direct-booking personalization company. It handles booking inquiries and reservations 24/7 by voice or text and sends the hotel a translated summary of each conversation (KITT). Language counts and PMS details appear in press coverage but not on the product page we checked.
Pricing: quote-only.
Best for: hotels already using The Hotels Network for direct-booking conversion.
General-purpose voice platforms let you build an agent from scratch. Retell AI lists $0.07 to $0.31 per minute (Retell pricing), Bland AI starts at $0.14 per minute (Bland pricing), and Synthflow’s enterprise plan starts at $30,000 a year (Synthflow pricing). The per-minute price is low, but you build and maintain the hotel parts yourself: PMS lookups, transfer rules, after-hours logic, FAQ training, and turning requests into tasks. For most single properties and small groups, a hotel-specific product is cheaper once staff time is counted.
One thing to check with any vendor: some guest messaging tools advertise “voice” when they mean replying to voice notes sent over WhatsApp or Messenger, not answering phone calls. HiJiffy, for example, describes its voice feature that way. Ask whether the product answers your hotel’s actual phone line.
Whichever you shortlist, ask each vendor four things: does it ring staff first or answer first, which PMS can it book against today, what happens to an in-stay request after the call, and what the monthly bill is for your room count, including any usage or credit charges.
To hear how HelloShift would answer your hotel’s calls, visit AI voice for hotels or request a demo.
It depends on what the hotel needs after the call. HelloShift fits hotels that want AI voice in the same app as guest messaging, housekeeping, and maintenance, with staff rung first and published per-room pricing. Hotels already paying for a guest-messaging suite can price its voice add-on, and vacation-rental-heavy portfolios may fit a rental-first tool better.
Published prices vary widely. HelloShift includes AI voice on Guest+ at $2.50 and Pro at $4.00 per room per month billed annually. SendSquared lists $500 to $1,500 a month plus usage for up to 50 keys. Canary, Akia, Lance, and KITT are quote-only. Build-your-own platforms such as Retell and Bland charge per minute, from about $0.07 to $0.31.
Some can. HelloShift, Canary AI Voice, SendSquared, and KITT describe booking or reservation handling on calls. HelloShift checks live availability and books through PMS integrations built per PMS, so confirm your PMS is supported. Akia reads reservations from its connected PMS systems, and Lance says a PMS integration is not required.
Across 15 months of real guest calls answered by HelloShift's AI voice agent, about 75% were handled without a transfer to a person, and about 1 in 4 calls came outside typical 8am-to-6pm front-desk hours.
No. It works best as overflow and after-hours coverage. The most common reason guests call a hotel is to reach a person, so a good system routes those calls quickly. HelloShift rings staff first and has the AI answer only when no one can pick up.
Independent hotels and hotel groups move maintenance from reactive to planned with HelloShift's recurring checklists and asset tracking, so equipment problems surface on a schedule instead of in a guest complaint.
From boutique inns to multi-property groups, hotels rely on HelloShift to never miss a booking. Our AI Voice answers calls 24/7, housekeeping teams stay in sync, and guests text instead of waiting. Everything in one app that is easier to use than Facebook.
Start your free 14-day trial today. No credit card required. Put AI to work answering every call, digitizing operations, and delighting guests.
From our own call data: Across 15 months of AI-answered guest calls, about 1 in 4 arrived outside 8am to 6pm front desk hours. Read the analysis.
Expert insights, case studies, and strategies from hotels using AI to boost revenue and delight guests
