TIDY’s View on AI for Operations

In this episode of the Hospitable Hosts podcast, we're delving deep into a topic on everyone's mind: Artificial Intelligence. Another company with a keen AI focus is TIDY. It helps property managers improve and automate cleaning and maintenance by combining software, AI, and humans. Chris Hawkins, CEO of TIDY, joins us to discuss his view on using AI for STR operations management.

Press play now to discover how AI helps automate turnovers and maintenance operations.

If you prefer to read the highlights, we've got a summary of the key takeaways below.

How AI Helps Automate Cleaning and Maintenance Operations

Chris explains that TIDY helps automate cleaning and maintenance, focusing on short-term rental space, which is rather complex to manage. They are focused on "how to save people time and effort in staff management."

Chris notes that hosts and property managers mainly deal with outside vendors, and it's tough to coordinate. "You can't just assign somebody a job and then have them do it 100% of the time."

So TIDY uses AI tools to automate cleaning management based on probabilities to predict whether vendors will accept a job request, show up to the job, and arrive on time. They also use large language models, like OpenAI's models, to understand what vendors say in their messages. These AI-powered tools help automate texts, calls, and other actions with pros so you can automate their tasks even if they don't use apps.

"These cleaners and maintenance people love text messaging. So, as they're texting back and forth, if they text and say, "Hey, I'm running 15 minutes late. Is that okay?" How can we handle that, push that up to the owner, and get authorization automatically? So dealing with that is more like text-based input instead of having them go through and click a button to say something."

Automating Workflows

Most STR property managers have unique workflows, so when they work with customers at TIDY, they recreate current workflows for each client. Chris explains that they might start with a list of pros (employees or outside vendors) and try to capture all the preferences and means of communication.

"We just figure out what you prefer. If you have Alice, Bob, and Charlie, do you tend always to ask Alice first, or how do you do that? What's your setup? Then, we recreate that in TIDY software that organizes all these workflows. One person may only want a phone call. One person prefers text. We capture all the preferences and recreate your existing workflow in the software as best as possible. And then, AI is tightly integrated into the software."

If they get a reservation from their customer's PMS system, for example, Hospitable or Airbnb, the TIDY system creates a job request based on the rules they have in the customer's account. Then, the software sends the job request to the people on the list, and this communication might be automated.

"So we'll text Alice, Bob, and Charlie and see if any of them can take this job. They can reply back. That's when we might use AI. And we have a human fallback system. We allow them to text you back and say, yeah, I can do the job. They can push a traditional button to do something, but they don't have to, which I think is important because a wide range of people in the space don't always want to use software. Sometimes, it's just easier not to use it."

Ensure Quality of Cleaning

TIDY can help hosts ensure that cleaning standards are met during each turnover. Chris points out hosts may consider vetting their vendors, such as checking VRMA certification, insurance requirements, etc. TIDY can support those simple background checks when onboarding cleaning professionals. "But the bigger thing people do with us is digital checklists for the pros to follow."

Chris emphasizes the value of digital checklists. "You don't want to micromanage every detail," he says. But if you add it to a checklist, you can ensure nothing is missed." Hosts can also ask cleaners to take photos and videos before or after the job, and TIDY can send them to be inspected.

"These days, the inspection can occur with the property manager or the host, or you can have our team do it. That is an area where we don't have AI doing it right now, but we're looking at how we can do that with AI. I think we're likely to be done in 2025."

Preventative Maintenance

Preventative maintenance is essential for short-term rentals because it helps spot minor issues before they can become problems and avoid complaints from guests. However, Chris points out that a few people create a list of maintenance tasks that must be performed regularly or follow that list.

"It's just hard to do it, so it's not worth it. So, where AI will be most helpful is making that automatic and providing the manufacturers or builders with a list of recommendations. So where we would like to see that going, we've done some experimentation, but we're not quite there yet."

Tune in to the full episode of the Hospitable Hosts podcast to discover how AI-powered tools can help optimize every aspect of the cleaning and maintenance process.