Luke: [00:00:00] From privacy concerns to limitless potential, AI is rapidly impacting our evolving society. In this new season of the Brave Technologist podcast, we’re demystifying artificial intelligence, challenging the status quo, and empowering everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. I’m your host, Luke Malks, VP of Business Operations at Brave Software, makers of the privacy respecting Brave browser and search engine, now powering AI with the Brave Search API.

You’re listening to a new episode of the Brave Technologist. And this one features Roshana Purnian, who is the director of data architecture and platform engineering at Hyatt, where she designs and manages large scale tech platforms for data driven decision making. There, she led the development of an AI ML optimized analytics platform, enabling real time data processing and algorithmic product development.

In this episode, we discuss The potential for generative AI, specifically in enhancing customer engagement in the hospitality sector with examples of how they’re leveraging emerging technologies and [00:01:00] their 1300 worldwide properties, architecture and design to support various data science teams and pipelines involved with the customer’s experience.

How they hire at Hyatt, including what they look for when interviewing candidates and how they foster a culture of innovation amongst their teams. And now for this week’s episode of the Brave Technologist. Hi, Rooshana. Welcome to the Brave Technologist. How are you doing today? I’m doing great.

Rooshana: I’m good.

Look, thanks for inviting me here.

Luke: Yeah, thanks for coming. I’ve been looking forward to it. What kind of sparked your interest in, data architecture and analytics? And how did you kind of transition into AI and machine learning?

Rooshana: My career history is actually, you know, started very humble beginnings. So I started my IC career as a data analyst.

Um, where I will run daily and monthly reports. But over time, I get very interested in the data technologies. And, uh, become, um,~~ um,~~ you know, more expert on the data warehouse environments. I have been in data [00:02:00] management for the last 20 years. I had an opportunity to, you know, work with the, for companies,~~ uh,~~ Fortune 500 companies, like retail space and finance, marketing, healthcare, before I transitioned to the hospitality environment.

So this,~~ uh,~~ diverse industries give me the, you know, broad perspective on the how the data is actually provide the drive the business transformation. So when I joined Hyatt, it was a significant time for Hyatt. It was transitioning the I. T. Operations back in house from, you know, outsource environment. So, ~~uh, ~~one of my major projects was building out data warehouse, the developing the and building the enterprise data warehouse for company.

So, which in time it become a foundation for the ~~heights business ~~heights data strategy. Another project I had the master data management, which also was streamlining them. The centralized key information for the guest data. So about [00:03:00] eight years ago, Hyatt data operations expanded. We recognize that we need to, we need to build a scalable environment.

And I was asked to build out the analytics platform on a cloud. So that’s how. I get into the A. I. M. L. Space and I was supporting the data science team. And after a couple of years, this project set basically platform for the A. I. Artificial intelligence. And now Genetic AI driven innovations for the Hyatt.

Luke: I’m just super curious because I haven’t really interviewed anybody that’s on the hospitality side. When you’re talking about like data analysis and how you all are using AI, like how are you using AI at Hyatt? Like is it, like guest information or like logistics or like can you give audience a sense of like kind of how that works?

Rooshana: Right now, we are,~~ uh,~~ the Hyatt personalization engine. Basically, we provide the personalization for the guests. It is,~~ uh,~~ giving them they [00:04:00] are a best fit hotel stays. And,~~ uh,~~ you know, marketing basically channels,~~ uh,~~ sending the emails or the providing them the,~~ uh,~~ on a Hyatt loyalty site with the, for the specific guests, preferred selection of the hotels.

Luke: Oh, excellent. Excellent. And how has generative AI specifically enhanced customer engagement in hospitality from your point of view? Generative

Rooshana: AI has tremendous potential for transforming the customer engagement in the hospitality. It could be not just transactional, but also personalized and intuitive.

At the hotels, there’s the guests, thousands of guests check in every day. And they are, but they are unique experiences, unique expectations and their travel habits. So the challenges and also the opportunity that when you’re using, you know, you can use AI to understand and anticipate their needs and enhance their journeys.

That is the key. Potential at the hospitality right now at Hyatt. We have like [00:05:00] 1300 properties worldwide. So the similarly with any other hospitality that our guests, you know, every one of them very unique. So we are utilizing a I to give them the seamless, highly personalized experience at scale.

Luke: Yeah, it seems really interesting because like when you really step back, even just looking at one, one hotel, right?

Like there’s a lot of ins and outs, a lot of people doing a lot of things all hours of the day. Right. And, and even from like planning the trip to like, actually when you get there and all of that too. So I’d imagine it’s a ton of data to analyze is that, are you looking at it from the whole journey for the customer?

Or are you, are you all attacking it kind of like looking at like. Okay, we’re going to focus on, you know, the booking experience and then, you know, the actual visit, or is it how holistic is the approach

Rooshana: at this point? Of course, we personalize a pre arrival. but the potential is you, you understand that potential is the whole the [00:06:00] guest journey.

So you can personalize guest engagements throughout the journey for the, for the guests. So that’s a, that’s a future we are looking for. And we actively exploring those enhancements for the customer journey.

Luke: I’d imagine too, that, you know, there’s a lot of like. Person to person engagement and hospitality right where are you having to work to with like the people on staff or at least in some kind of focus group type of way to like make sure that you’re not losing that person like a personalization on the data side is one thing right but then like you’re also dealing with.

Person to person interaction at the hotel. Like, how is that? I’m saying that with the staff and

Rooshana: yeah, we were guided by the principle of the, you know, we care for people so they can be at their best. We are providing the one on one interactions at the hotels.~~ It’s not. That we are utilizing, you know, ~~we are planning to utilize the robots at the hotels, but the hospitality, it’s it’s core.

It’s people business. So we [00:07:00] see the artificial intelligence is helping to enrich the guest experience, not replace the guest engagement.

Luke: Yeah. And I guess what I’m kind of also kind of getting at too is like, are the staff having to kind of learn how to use the AI or, or is it all kind of a system that they’re interacting with too?

Like, cause I know I talked to people that are working for other, you know, corporate environments and they’re like, we have to go instruct them on a whole bunch of different types of operational security things. Like don’t. Give away private data and all these things like hospitality. So different, right?

Because got staff that are, might not be as technical or, or might be real people, person, right? Like, like how is it,~~ um, uh, ~~in that training environment, I guess, with, the staff.

Rooshana: I guess we, we are not providing, uh, the, the Hyatt is actually very cautious about the personal information. So we protect the guest information truly.

So our models and also the, our guest data never gets into the models and they are anonymized and we don’t use the personal data. All the AI is. [00:08:00] It’s, it’s a central, right? It’s not send it out to the hotel personnel, doesn’t use the AI information. They just get the information that the specific person will need,~~ um,~~ specific care at the hotel.

Luke: Interesting. Interesting. How is it like fostering kind of a culture of innovation with your teams while you’re managing these complexities in these environments? I keep getting back to this. It’s just thoughts of like. just making sure the services are running on time, right? Like, and, and that people, when you, when you add the personalization too, it just seems like a pretty dynamic space.

Are you all encouraging all the staff to kind of dig into this too? Like is that environment with your team?

Rooshana: At Hyatt, we work to unlock the new possibilities. We are fostering the open mindset. So we define the clear outcomes and,~~ um,~~ you know, embrace the agile ways of working. At Hyatt, this is one of the,~~ uh,~~ Hyatt ways of working, actually.

It was even branded for us. So we are,~~ uh,~~ we [00:09:00] have a fast paced, cross functional teams. And we are dedicated to, you know, continuous experimentation and learning at our work. So, we are also cultivating the open mindset at Hyatt. So, we are prioritizing the creating the safe space for our team members to express ideas and explore new possibilities.

So in in my team, I actually provide my team with the learning opportunities. So because learning opportunities, it’s investment in our people and also that it empowers the future projects, right? So it’s a kind of win win situation. We also building the data driven culture. We,~~ uh,~~ you know, building out this data platform.

And,~~ uh,~~ providing the business users the data that they need to make the decisions. Also, creating the data driven culture. So, um, transparency and also encouraging the analytical mindset for the [00:10:00] people. In, uh, today’s world, you know, it’s very fast paced technology and everything is changing. And the companies needs to, you know, learn how to navigate the rapid changes in technology and business.

At Hyatt, we continuously reinvent ourselves,~~ uh,~~ stay ahead of the industry and the technology trends and advancements. We are cultivating the adaptable culture so we can sustain the growth for the company.

Luke: That’s fantastic. And have you seen, I know a lot of this is relatively still kind of finding fit, right?

With these things. But have you seen any really cool ideas or,~~ um, uh, ~~initiatives kind of come out of that where you give people some room, like you were saying, to kind of explore and try different things out?

Rooshana: So in the technology world that we were able to, for example, right now we are in a good position with our data platform, we were able to transition to the scalable [00:11:00] cloud based platform that can actually, you know, fuel the AI projects.

So we are working,~~ uh,~~ I’m not,~~ uh,~~ liberty to say at this point, we are working on multiple projects to utilize our data to provide a different kind of, you know, enhancements in our business.

Luke: Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say, I mean, we were talking a little bit earlier about like personalization, right, on that side, but,~~ um,~~ have you all found some good efficiency wins too from applying AI at, at Hyatt?

Rooshana: One way of personalization brought the efficiency that we can actually market to the right content to the right people, right customers, and we can do it at scale. So and similarly, other type of personalization in the customer journey can be done at scale with the using the utilizing the A. I. So that’s efficiency, right?

So you are not utilizing. multiple different tools for [00:12:00] the enhancing the engagement from the customers.

Luke: Awesome. That’s great. Now, just kind of thinking big picture, right? Like imagine we’re a little bit further down the road and, um, well, what potential areas like really get you excited about where AI and hospitality can go like for, for the customer.

~~It could be you as somebody that goes to hotels or, or, or, but, or somebody that’s working on right. Like, uh, for the org, right. You know, what, what are those things where you’re like, this is really gonna blow people away, you know, in your mind? Absolutely. ~~

Rooshana: There’s a lots of potential with A. I. And every company is looking into ways of, you know, like you said, enhancing the interaction with the customers.

It could be hospitality or any other retail company or the also enhancing the efficiency and the workplace, right? So we are looking many different ways. But in hospitality, it could be anything from the curating the content. Translations. And also, like I said already, that personal, uh, the enhancing the personalization with the across the customer journey, the providing very meaningful, you know, interactions for the customers.

~~I mean, the for the guests at the hotels. ~~

Luke: The really interesting point to you, like one thing that comes to mind, and I’m not sure if you all thought about this,~~ uh, uh, but I’ve traveled internationally quite a bit and being somebody that doesn’t speak a lot of languages, uh,~~ in, in a foreign country too, it imagined things like, even things like translating things in the room or that part of the, the customer experience is something where it seems like AI could be a really Helpful tool as somebody that goes on international trips occasionally and doesn’t always speak the language, but finds themselves kind of confused.

Sometimes in the room, you know,

Rooshana: every company is utilizing the AI for enhancements in their, you know, interactions with the customers. It could be a hospitality or it could be a retail space. It also every company now trying to get the value out of the out of the I. So at the hotel, it could be,~~ uh,~~ personalization, personalization journey.

It could be also, you know, uh, content curation and also the translations and, uh, helping [00:13:00] customer customers that,~~ uh,~~ you know, help desk to translate. And like you said, provide them the information that they need in a native language of the country. And also that imagine that you come to the hotel,~~ um,~~ you know, the beautiful hotel and you walk into the room.

As soon as you check in, you receive your personalized. Message on the phone, your dinner recommendations or the restaurant that perfectly matches to your, you know, preferences and or the, you know, where you can go the next day to explore the city. So all those recommendations can be done at the check in.

So you don’t have to search for your, you know, preferences or your preferred,~~ you know, ~~restaurant or the places to go. This is the ways of you can enhance the customer journey.

Luke: No, that’s fantastic. I mean, that sounds like those are all things that would be great additions, you know, to that, that experience.

And, and sometimes too, you know, people are, um, they might be a little shy or something like that, you know, and, and having that kind of personalization ready made for them might be, might be nice when you look at your [00:14:00] team, like are a lot of the people on your team from backgrounds or, or did they kind of find their way to AI from other parts of the company or from other disciplines?

~~Yeah. ~~

Rooshana: ~~I think we skipped the space that, I mean, I am leading the data architecture and the platform engineering, so I do support AI, um, work, but I don’t specifically, I’m not the data scientist team. My team supports the data science at high end. So that’s the one small. ~~

Luke: No, I mean, that’s great. I think what I’m trying to kind of show people here too, is just like how people think about things kind of monolithically, right?

Like when they think, okay, the person working AI, right? But like, when you think about someplace like Hyatt, where, you know, you did a great job of laying out, like, just there’s all these different factors, right? Like, and all these different data flows and everything experiences, right? Like, um, you know, having being able to support that side of the business and, Kind of plug in the innovation, right?

~~Like it’s kind of where ~~I love the audience to learn a little bit around, like how it’s practically being used. Right? are you kind of gathering different people to build that architecture, basically that, the data science team can work in? Is that, how your team’s operating?

Rooshana: At Hyatt, we do have a part.

Pod oriented development teams that we get together and define the what we really need to what the business problem we are solving and from that start designing and my team is architectural design for data architecture and the solution architecture for all the products. At Hyatt data space, data product teams, data, science, um, also the,~~ um, uh, data architecture, uh,~~ data engineering, we all together work on the,~~ uh,~~ solutioning for the, for the products.

So it could be AI, it could be just the data product. It could be,~~ um,~~ any type of application that we do visualization for the, our business partners. That all comes out from the pod oriented teams. My team is, does architectural design [00:15:00] and then implementation of the pipelines. Like I said, again, it could be,~~ um,~~ data pipelines or they could be AML,~~ uh,~~ artificial intelligence or the machine learning pipelines.

Luke: Interesting. And it’s like a lot of different inputs, right? A lot of different

Rooshana: inputs, yeah. Very

Luke: complex. What are some of the challenges you face?

Rooshana: Challenges could be the not defined,~~ um,~~ the, you know, ~~uh, ~~vision. If there’s a, there’s no vision, it could be difficult to deliver what the business wants.

Because of that, we also include in our conversations business partners, so that path oriented development is,~~ um,~~ we include also business partners that align with their business. Again, if you don’t define what, what you’re looking for, you may not get there. Yes. So, and also the issues could be when the scope changes, of course it takes longer time to deliver.

Luke: I’d imagine, yeah, I’d imagine [00:16:00] that’s got to be. Pretty tricky. Like you said, the, the space moves so fast too, and, you’ve got,~~ uh,~~ business partners getting involved and, you know, priorities and, shifting things. Right. And it’s a lot of complexity.

Rooshana: Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Luke: Are there any resources or, things you suggest they, check out if, if they’re learning to get into kind of this data architecture like side of the, of the world?

Rooshana: Of course there is lots of websites,~~ uh,~~ for the learnings like Udacity or the Coursera. Or the, you know, any kind of,~~ um,~~ the learning sites from even from those,~~ um,~~ um, the cloud providers. Google, the AWS, the Azure can, can give you a start and,~~ uh,~~ you can also, you know, read up the books and follow the leaders in the field.

That’s how I, keep my,~~ um,~~ technical expertise,~~ uh,~~ checked. And,~~ uh,~~ also I, um. Provide my team with the time and also, um, ability to, to learn more and,~~ uh,~~ keep up with the,~~ uh,~~ you know, changing technologies.

Luke: And are there [00:17:00] any pointers for somebody that might be interested in working for Hyatt in this area?

And, and what do you think sets Hyatt apart from other competitors in the hospitality space on this front?

Rooshana: And to work at Hyatt, you have to be very open minded and keep learning and need to have a growth mindset. That’s one of the, I wouldn’t say it’s a requirement, but it’s a kind of,~~ uh,~~ in these times you really need to keep learning.

So, and growth is a, kind of becomes a necessity, I would say. Understand the business, one other side of it. So because we are hospitality, like I said, we are very people centric, so that will help to understand the customers, understand their wants or what they don’t want. That will help to get into the roles.

Luke: Interesting. Yeah, that’s great. And for people that might want to follow your work get in touch follow along with what you’re doing, where [00:18:00] can they find you online?

Rooshana: I’m available on LinkedIn. That’s a Single social site. I think I’m keep keep going back. Otherwise, others. I don’t have time.

Luke: Understood.

Obviously a lot going on. We’ll be sure to include a link in the bio for folks that want to reach out. And Roshanna, it’s been really, really gracious for you to give us your time today and really appreciate you coming on. And I’m sure the audience learned a lot today. So, thanks again for making it out today.

And we’d love to have you back to, to check back in on how things are going in the future.

Rooshana: Thank you so much, Alok. Thanks for inviting me, and I, it was really nice spending time with you.

Luke: Likewise, likewise. Thanks a lot.

Rooshana: Thank you.

Luke: Thanks for listening to the Brave Technologist podcast. To never miss an episode, make sure you hit follow in your podcast app.

If you haven’t already made the switch to the Brave browser, you can download it for free today at brave. com and start using Brave Search, which enables you to search the web privately. Brave also shields [00:19:00] you from the ads, trackers, and other creepy stuff following you across the web.