Robots are on the rise as travel companies look for new ways to satisfy customer needs, reduce costs and remain competitive.
But a new study by McKinsey, shared by the World Economic Forum, suggests that it might be decades before companies can expect Artificial Intelligence (AI) and bots to offer empathetic service on par with human interactions.
And bots may not catch up with us on critical travel services functions until 2070.
McKinsey finds that people are still far better than robots at the elements of abstract thinking which are critical to offering customers satisfactory service which encourages repeat purchases and loyalty.
We’ve seen a number of customer service chat interfaces or "bots" debut over the past year, facilitated by improvements in algorithms which form the baseline of AI, but emotional intelligence is more complex.
It requires bots to match humans on abstract skills like: identifying new patterns, logical reasoning, creative thinking, coordination between multiple agents, understanding natural language, identifying and responding to social and emotional states during interactions, and displaying appropriate social and emotional states in response.
As Gadi Bashvitz, founder and CEO of Olset (since bought by Deem), wrote for Tnooz last year:
"Travel booking is a complex and emotional process that requires more engagement than simple transactions such as buying a shirt, an example Facebook uses in its documentation."
This lack of emotional and semantic intelligence accounts can result in inconsistent and dissatisfying interactions unless the automation is focused around job functions where bots are most likely to succeed.
Even where technology is on par with human capabilities, the process of automation may still be delayed.
The McKinsey report explains that development and deployment costs, cost and supply of human labor, and the general acceptance by consumers of a bot interface replacing a human also determine whether or not bots work for a particular industry.
Today, hiring a bot is a similar process to hiring a human.
Companies must have drafted a clear job description, confirm the skill set of the candidate, and be prepared for things to go slowly until there is a certain level of familiarization between the parties.
Because of the current distribution of workers - with many in jobs in the marketplace involving repetitive tasks, McKinsey finds that half of the work activities performed around the world could be automated with existing technology.
But we far outperform bots in the improvisational skills which make us most human - and those are the skills which matter most in travel.