Jessica Gillingham Talks AI, Hybrid Hospitality, and What Comes Next

9/29/2025

Jessica Gillingham—CEO of Abode Worldwide and author of “Tech-Enabled Hospitality”—joins us to map the real state of hospitality tech across short-term rentals, hotels, and multifamily. Drawing on interviews with 38 global leaders, she argues that technology’s job is simple: enable better hospitality. We dig into the mindset shift from “tech as cost” to “tech as a strategic investment,” why many operators now prize stability and long-term vendor partnerships over constant churn, and how AI is moving personalization from buzzword to practice—provided operators unify data across the guest and staff journeys.

Jessica explores the rise (and operational complexity) of hybrid hospitality models, the cooling of sustainability talk versus the steady, cost-driven adoption of IoT, and her big prediction: search and discovery will change fast as LLMs start answering instead of listing, reshaping OTA dynamics and operator marketing. She closes with pragmatic advice for managers: start with strategy, move deliberately, and use tech to get more human, not less.