How digital employees are transforming STR operations

As short-term rental management companies scale beyond 150+ properties, the challenge of maintaining consistent quality while building a recognizable hospitality brand becomes increasingly complex. Ahead of IMN's Short-Term Rental Summer Forum, we spoke to Lana Udalov, Co-Founder & CEO of Polydom, to explore how AI-powered digital employees are revolutionizing STR operations by working alongside human teams rather than replacing them, and why this hybrid approach is essential for competing with OTAs and building sustainable loyalty programs.

The evolution from automation to digital employees

The hospitality industry has reached a critical inflection point in how it approaches AI implementation. While generative AI can produce answers and summarize information, digital employees represent a fundamentally different approach, they're built for specific business roles and work inside real company operations with defined responsibilities, workflows, and escalation protocols.

The distinction is crucial: generative AI can talk about hospitality requests and pricing, but digital employees can actually execute the work. When a guest requests to extend their stay, a digital employee like Polydom's "Una" logs into the property management system, checks availability, evaluates early check-in conflicts, applies company rules, and performs the extension, all while communicating the decision and reasoning to the guest in real-time.

Closing the direct booking gap

A direct booking website without instant self-execution is merely a brochure. The real challenge in STR is that guests aren't just choosing a room type, they're making decisions about an entire journey, including questions about family needs, pets, activities, and whether a specific home suits their requirements.

Currently, most direct booking journeys are too passive, leaving guests alone with descriptions, filters, fees, and policies. Meanwhile, OTAs control the pre-booking relationship, limiting operator flexibility and preventing meaningful guest engagement before arrival. Digital employees bridge this gap by providing always-on sales support at the exact moment when guests are ready to book, guiding them through the decision-making process in multiple languages and with personalized context.

The hybrid hospitality model

The future of STR operations lies in hybrid teams where digital employees handle speed, consistency, multilingual support, SOP execution, and task routing, while human teams focus on emotional situations, complex exceptions, owner relationships, and local hospitality.

Implementation typically follows a predictable pattern: managers initially control every conversation and transcript, but within 2-3 weeks, they begin trusting the digital employee's capabilities and shift their focus to higher-value activities. The digital employee becomes a team coordinator and dispatcher, centralizing operational management while the human team builds authentic hospitality experiences.

Measuring success and guest expectations

Modern travelers expect instant digital services that solve problems immediately. Response time has evolved from a service metric to a revenue metric, with the biggest lost revenue occurring between guest intent and company response. Digital employees meet this expectation by providing 24/7 availability, multilingual support, and instant problem resolution.

Success is measured through resolved questions, guest satisfaction scores, upsell performance, and escalation quality. This data-driven approach allows continuous refinement of knowledge bases, responsibility scopes, and team collaboration protocols, ensuring that digital employees evolve alongside business needs.

Want to learn more about how digital employees can transform your STR operations and build stronger direct booking channels? Watch the full interview below and connect with the Polydom team at IMN's Short Term Rental Forum: