The AI Hospitality Alliance and HEDNA have published a free, crowdsourced catalogue identifying 109 unique AI use cases across 39 hotel systems — the industry's first global attempt to map where artificial intelligence is actually running in hotel operations rather than where vendors say it could.

The project drew 198 industry submissions. After review and deduplication, the working group consolidated those into the 109 use cases now organized in an interactive map available at no cost to operators, vendors and academics.

For an industry that has spent years discussing AI in largely abstract terms, the catalogue is a deliberate shift toward the concrete. "Hospitality has been discussing the potential of AI for years, but the conversation has often remained abstract. This catalogue makes AI tangible," said Ira Vouk, founder of the AI Hospitality Alliance. "It gives hoteliers a clear view of where AI is already being applied, what opportunities exist across the technology stack, and which use cases they should investigate for their own organizations."

The map's structure mirrors how a hotel technology stack actually breaks down. It organizes AI applications across five core operating functions: Guest Experience; Revenue Management and Business Intelligence; Operations; Distribution and Commerce; and Marketing and Sales.

Three cross-cutting layers sit on top of that functional view: Payments and Transaction Infrastructure; Data, Middleware, Semantic and Agent Infrastructure; and Hotel Development, Asset and Investment Intelligence. That framing acknowledges a practical reality for operators — many of the highest-leverage AI applications sit in infrastructure and data plumbing that span departments, not in a single siloed system.

Users can click any system on the map to see related use cases. A density toggle shows how many use cases were identified for each system, a feature designed to reveal where industry activity is concentrated and where white space remains. For hoteliers weighing technology budgets, that concentration data doubles as a rough market signal: systems with dense use-case activity indicate mature vendor ecosystems, while sparse ones may point to underexplored opportunities.

Each use case in the full catalogue carries additional detail, including its primary beneficiary, adoption maturity, supporting evidence and cross-functional reach. Use cases are ranked by a hotelier evaluation-priority score intended to help organizations decide what to investigate first.

The publishers are explicit about what that score is not. It does not measure realized ROI, vendor quality or market share — a notable caveat for operators who might otherwise read a high ranking as proof of financial return. The ranking is a triage tool for due diligence, not a substitute for it.

The knowledge base is designed to keep evolving. Hospitality professionals, operators, vendors and academics can submit additional use cases the first edition may have missed. Technology providers can also submit their companies for consideration as examples of solutions supporting specific use cases identified in the catalogue — a structure that could turn the map into a de facto vendor directory as it matures.

Both the interactive map and the complete catalogue are available free of charge at aihospitalityalliance.com/ai-use-cases, consistent with the AI Hospitality Alliance's stated mission of making practical AI education, research and resources broadly accessible.

The AI Hospitality Alliance brings together hospitality leaders, technology companies, AI platforms, researchers and practitioners to accelerate responsible and practical AI adoption across the industry. Its partner on the project, HEDNA (Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association), is a not-for-profit trade association founded in 1991 whose membership includes distribution executives from influential hospitality companies worldwide.

Vouk, who also teaches hospitality and AI at San Diego State University's L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, framed the initiative as an answer to a question hoteliers keep asking: how can AI actually be used in operations, system by system. With submissions open and the catalogue positioned as a living document rather than a one-time report, its usefulness to operators will depend on whether the industry keeps contributing — and whether future editions add the ROI evidence this first release deliberately excludes.