Less than 6% of 107 surveyed hotel leaders book AI savings into the P&L, according to the State of Hotel AI survey premiered by Josiah Mackenzie and Naz Aydin at the Destination AI summit. The 5.6% figure captures a widening gulf between AI adoption — now near-universal — and the financial accountability operators need to defend rising technology budgets.

What did the survey measure?

Mackenzie and Aydin fielded the survey in August and September. Respondents skewed toward management companies (33%) and owners or investors (28%), with the balance drawn from brands, operators and technology vendors. Sixty-three percent of leaders said they use AI regularly, another 34.7% occasionally, and 1% not at all. More than 80% reported the technology has made their work better; none said it made their work worse.

Use runs deep. Forty-four percent of respondents spend 10 or more hours a week on AI, and 16% spend 20 or more. Ninety percent said AI improved time spent on routine tasks.

How wide is the strategy gap?

Only 12.6% described their organization as having an AI strategy, governance and scaled execution across functions. Twenty-six percent run on ad hoc experimentation with no formal strategy. Even companies with a defined strategy hit friction: 70% said execution remains fragmented.

Survey analysts framed the disconnect bluntly: "A GM with a ChatGPT login is not an AI strategy." Seventy-two percent of respondents access AI through general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot, versus 33% through existing hotel technology partners and 16% through AI-first vendors.

Is anyone measuring ROI?

Few. Thirty-five percent of hotel leaders do not measure AI ROI at all. Fourteen percent use defined before-and-after KPIs. Just 5.6% commit AI benefits into business-unit budgets or P&Ls.

Twenty-four percent said their AI investment has paid for itself overall. Twenty-eight percent said it is too early to tell.

What is blocking scaled deployment?

Two-thirds of leaders (67%) cite change management, data quality or systems integration among their top barriers. Only 8% blame the AI models themselves. Broken out, change management leads at 35%, data quality at 34% and integration at 29%. Forty-two percent feel their data foundation is ready; 48% do not.

Where is the spending headed?

Nowhere smaller. No respondent plans to reduce AI spending in the next 12 months, and 37% plan to spend more than 10% above current levels. The top goal: cutting costs and improving productivity, cited by 34%, versus 13% for new revenue and 9% for guest experience.

Nineteen percent already report AI has redefined corporate roles, against 4% for frontline roles — an early signal that back-office functions are absorbing automation before property-level staff.

Does a second study confirm the pattern?

A separate h2c study released the same week found 91% of hotel chains already use AI, but only 28% have a company-wide strategy and just 13% report measurable ROI. Two independent surveys land on one verdict: adoption is no longer the problem. Accountability is.

Why the urgency for operators?

Presenters at the summit tied the AI gap to mounting hotel P&L pressure. Industry margins have dropped 20% since 2019, and undistributed expenses per occupied room are up 14% year-to-date in 2026, driven in part by SaaS fees. Labor, the largest controllable line, runs close to 40 cents of every revenue dollar. With cost-cutting as the dominant AI goal and 35% of operators not measuring returns, the next budget cycle will force hotel companies to convert anecdote into line-item savings before owners and lenders sign the next technology check.