The Best AI Is the Kind You Don’t Notice (How IHG Is Scaling AI That Actually Works)

Most enterprise AI tries to be impressive. In a hotel, it just needs to work.No one checks in hoping to experience great AI. They want things to feel smooth, fast, intuitive — like everything is just handled. That’s the standard.At IHG Hotels & Resorts, AI is being applied with that mindset. Not as a headline, but as a way to make employees more effective and operations run cleaner behind the scenes.In this episode, IHG Chief Product and Technology Officer Jolie Fleming shares what it actually looks like to scale AI inside a global hospitality business. Not pilots that linger. Not demos that look good in slides. Real changes to how work gets done — across call centers, service workflows, language translation and day-to-day operations.The approach is simple, but disciplined: start with a real problem, fix it, prove it works and then expand. It’s less about chasing the latest model and more about building something that holds up under pressure.And underneath it all, the fundamentals still matter. Data, workflows and governance don’t go away with AI — they become more important. Fast.For leaders trying to move quickly without losing control, this episode offers a clear takeaway: the most effective AI doesn’t announce itself. It just makes everything work better.Support for this episode provided by: Check PointMore about this week's guest:Jolie Fleming was appointed Chief Product & Technology Officer in April 2024. In this role, Jolie is responsible for driving the development of all guest, enterprise and owner-facing products and technology, while working across our regions with marketing, brands, loyalty and operations. Jolie joined IHG in 2021 as Senior Vice President, Guest Products and Platforms (GPP) for IHG's Commercial and Technology team. In that role, she led the development and launch of technology solutions for the new IHG One Rewards programme and supporting mobile app, new hotel websites and the seamless integration of new partners including Iberostar.The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions. Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground.The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others.Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC), this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.