What Is Akia’s AI Agent Feature?
Train your own AI Agent to help answer guest messages in your inbox, allowing your team to focus on important tasks and only be notified when the agent is unable to respond.
The agent works on the SMS, WhatsApp, Airbnb, and Web Chat platforms, and is a great way to reduce your response time and answer repeat questions.
How Do I Set Up My AI Agent?
Reference
This is information your agent will refer to when formulating its answer to a guest. Think of it as you’re setting up an internal knowledge base (Google) the agent will leverage/search through when a guest messages in.
When you’re deciding what to include in your reference content, think of it like you’re training a new staff member on how they should respond when a guest asks about a certain topic. For example “A guest is asking about nearby restaurants, your response would be ____”
- Click Add Reference to add a new reference, or if you have a PDF or Word file, click Upload to have Akia parse the file and automatically create references.
- When adding a new reference, think of the name as a keyword (like Wi-Fi, Pet Policy, Registration Card) the agent should use to determine if it should look at the content or use a different reference.
- Pet friendly units, pet policy, and pet fee can all be combined under a single “Pet Policy” or “Pets” reference, and in the content you include answers to each of those sections for the agent to leverage.
Expand this section to view example references
Address / Property Location
Check In and Check out Time
Parking / Parking Information
Pet Policy / Pet Friendliness
WiFi / Internet Access
Door Code / Access
Airport Shuttle
Food Options / Restaurant Recommendations / Restaurant Reservation / Room Service
Early Check-in Policy / Late Checkout Policy
Local Attractions
Gym / Fitness Center
Loyalty Program
Thermostat / Air Conditioner / Heater
Available Amenities
- In the content section, you’ll input any material the agent should know in regard to that keyword - more information is better so the agent can also leverage that information if the guest asks a follow up question.
- The agent can process message tokens, so if you already have the information in your PMS, feel free to use any message tokens and have the response automatically reservation/unit-specific
- For your content, you can also specify filters for the response - meaning the agent will not refer to that content if the guest does not meet those filters. This is a great way to send different messaging if the guest is in-house vs arriving soon, or booked via an OTA vs direct.
- Similar to variants, if you have filters on your content, the agent will use the first applicable content to answer the guest’s question with. If there’s no applicable content, the agent will not automatically respond.
- Continue adding more reference material and modify existing reference material as needed if you find the agent is struggling to answer some guest questions.
Example Reference & Guest Example: Pets
Let’s test this out with a Pets reference! We’ve created a new reference with the name Pets and added our pet policy, pet friendly units, and dog friendly parks to the content section. That way, the AI Agent should be able to answer more follow up questions guests may ask.
We did not add any filters since these rules/content is something all guests or prospects should know about.
Now, when a guest messages in about Pets, the AI Agent will handle the conversation until a guest asks something it can’t handle (in this case booking a reservation).
You can also create references directly from a guest’s message. Hover over the guest’s message and click the circle icon to create a reference directly from the inbox:
Instructions
Think of instructions as what the agent should do/standard behavior when a guest’s message comes in. Unlike references where the agent is using the references to formulate its response, the agent uses instructions to determine its standard operating procedure.
Here are some examples of instructions:
- Always notify staff if a guest reports an issue in their room
- If a guest messages in "Confirm upgrade," notify staff immediately and do not respond
- Never offer early check-in or late checkout to guests. Let our team know if a guest is requesting this.
When writing your instructions, if you want the agent to behave in a certain way, utilize capitalization and stern language to drive the point home.
Some common phrases you can use in your instructions are:
- Open ticket/notify staff/escalate conversation - The agent will understand to re-open the guest’s conversation with a red dot in the inbox for your team to be notified
- Create task for ___ - The agent will direct the task to the specified department/user
- Don’t respond - The agent will not respond to the guest (you will need to prompt the agent to open ticket/notify/etc if you don’t want it to respond but still be notified)
- Check if the guest is eligible for early check-in/late checkout - The agent will evaluate to see if the guest is eligible for their request based on their reservation data and the current reservations you have in the system
Akia will be able to determine when an instruction can create reference material and may do so automatically if applicable.
Config
Specify how the agent should be talking with your guests. Here, you can specify any particular greetings or sign-offs your property uses (Aloha and Mahalo for example) so the agent matches your team’s tone of voice.
You can also toggle Supervised mode on or off on this page. Remember to Save Changes at the bottom!
Tasks
The agent will refer to the items you designate in this section to automatically create tasks for your staff members. If an item is not defined here, the agent will not automatically create the task and instead notify your team to respond/manually create the task.
We recommend phrasing the items in a Verb Noun format (Bring ___, Deliver ___, Investigate ___) so the agent is better suited to handle different ways guests might message in. The agent does have a concept of synonyms, so “Sheets” would be considered the same as “Linens,” but you can also specify each item individually if there’s specific nuances.
Leverage tasks with instructions if you want tasks to go to a specific department. For example, “When a guest asks about more towels, create a task for housekeeping to bring towels to their room,” otherwise the agent will determine which department and task queue to create the task for.
Learn more about Tasks here: Create and Manage Tasks
What Is Supervised Mode vs Standard Mode?
By default, your agent will be in a supervised mode. This means the agent will not automatically respond to guests but it will suggest the message it would’ve sent to the guest. This is a great way to evaluate your agent’s training and tone of voice to make sure it’s behaving correctly and referencing the correct information before you switch it to the standard mode where the agent will automatically respond to guests if it’s able to.
When a guest messages in, you will see a suggested message box if the agent was able to formulate a response to the guest:
You then have four options based on the suggested message:
- Click the circular arrow icon to accept the agent’s message and immediately send it to the guest
- Click the pencil icon to edit the agent’s message before sending it
- When you edit the agent’s message, you will be connected to the chat
Once you send the message to the guest, Akia will indicate a staff member edited the agent’s suggested message:
- Click the x to reject the suggested message and dismiss it from the chat. Your team would then have to open the chat and respond to the guest.
- Ignore the suggested message and open the chat to respond to the guest
You can toggle Supervised mode on or off in your Config page!
FAQs
- Can the AI Agent respond to guests who are not currently on property or do not have a reservation?
- Yes! As long as the platform is SMS, WhatsApp, Web Chat, or Airbnb, Akia’s AI will be able to respond.
- Is each guest conversation unique? Is there a risk of the AI Agent responding to one guest (John Doe) based on the conversation with another guest (Jane Smith)?
- All guest conversations are unique, the AI will only respond based on what was discussed in each individual conversation.
- When will the AI Agent try and respond to guests?
- The AI Agent will try and respond to any unattended conversation, meaning as long as no user is connected to the chat, the AI Agent will try and respond if it’s able to. If the Agent has already opened up a ticket (meaning it could not answer the guest itself), if the guest asks follow up questions it will not respond.
- Can the AI Agent search up the web for information?
- No, the AI Agent will only refer to information you provide it in the training sections. It does not have access to Google or common information.