Marriott International Inc., the world’s biggest lodging company, is pitting Amazon’s Alexa against Apple’s Siri to be the voice-controlled platform of choice in its hotels, reports Bloomberg.
The goal is to offer guests a virtual “hotel butler” that lets them access and manage systems such as heating, cooling, lighting and entertainment by speaking a request at home or using a smartphone. Marriott expects to decide whether to adopt Siri or Alexa for one or more of its chains as early as mid-year.
“Probably by the end of the first half of this year, we’ll have a pretty good indication of where we’re headed,” Toni Stoeckl — who oversees the Aloft, Element, AC and Moxy chains as global brand leader for lifestyle brands at Marriott — told Bloomberg. “The race is still on.”
