HIVR launched Mandy on Wednesday, an AI-powered phone agent for conference and group sales, with Radisson Hotel Group being its first customer. The company said agents can handle a range of tasks, including qualified inbound leads, follow up on incomplete email queries, restore dormant leads, and provide customer support. It can capture meeting requests, process room requests, and discuss catering options in over 50 languages.
The German-based company was founded in 2020 by a former Expedia Group executive who developed Mandy to address inefficiency in the conference and group sales divisions.
HIVR’s broader suite of technology includes channel management across major conference platforms such as Cvent, price and task automation tools, including “Alex”, an AI email agent that handles incoming queries and automatically updates hotel systems. In January, the company announced a few investments from travel tech giant Amadeus.
How Mandy works
While computer systems can communicate and automate the booking process directly through APIs, human dialogue is more complex and unstructured. That’s where Mandy came in.
Skift meeting saw Mandy’s demo. During the conversation, Mandy clarified the request and collected information for the virtual event. Mandy handles unstructured requests using natural language well in English and Portuguese in informal conversations.
According to CEO and co-founder Felix Undeutsch, she is a translator who converts natural human voice into structured data that computers can process. Undeutsch revealed that HIVR trained Mandy to train hundreds of thousands of actual client requests from hotel partners (rather than textbooks), allowing her to understand various terms and informal language patterns.
The company said the system operates within a strict guardrail and focuses only on conversations related to meetings. If a user tries to discuss politics, COVID-19, or other non-themed topics, Mandy redirects the conversation to meet the requirements. She can also contact other professional AI agents to conduct checks, such as checking hotel availability, although these handovers are a perception of the user.
When it comes to pricing, Mandy integrates with the hotel revenue management system, but does not make an independent decision. “She didn’t make a decision about the price, she wouldn’t negotiate with you based on what she thought was the best, it follows the rules of the revenue management team,” Undeutsch said.
This automation helps streamline workflows by reducing operational engagement of revenue managers. “By using HIVR and systematizing these decisions, revenue managers simply turn to and don’t participate in the operation when approving a quote or proposal, which shouldn’t happen in the first place,” Undeutsch said.
Integration and limitations
Mandy is currently handing over complex operational discussions to human employees. However, Undeutsch noted: “It’s a limitation. I don’t think it’s a one-year limit.”
Instead of replacing booking platforms like Cvent, Mandy supplements them by taking immediate follow-up measures to requests made through these platforms. “This call doesn’t happen eight to 24 hours later, you send a request and make a call – instantly, you as a planner, you’re still in the emotional state, you’re still in the context of a mentality and meeting request,” Undeutsch said.
Mandy aims to help the HIVR system structure all captured information and push it to the hotel’s system to eliminate manual data entry. The company said it can match the requirements of available hotels and generate appropriate suggestions for the sake of multi-products.
Alternative instant booking
While some industry players focus on instant booking capabilities, HIVR has chosen target process automation. “Whatever they are, we automate mundane administrative tasks,” Undeutsch said. The response was clever when asked why HIVR focused on automation rather than instant booking. “We can’t see it [instant booking] future. We don’t think there is any adoption. ”
Undeutsch believes that instant availability and pricing are more valuable to planners than instant booking. “Reservations are things that may not be done for various reasons. You need approval. You need to contact someone. I don’t think instant bookings will never be in more complex meetings.”
Looking ahead, Undeutsch sees the opportunities and challenges of AI impact. He believes that eliminating administrative barriers may lead to more meaningful human interactions. “The number may just disappear. It will happen in the background and we will become more physical and human again.” However, he also expressed concern about social impact, especially for the daily tasks of executives, which are soon to be AI and automation replaces administrative staff.
Mandy plans to go live with the Radisson Hotel Group during ITB Berlin in early March 2025, with more hotel companies expected.
