AN ARTIFICIALLY intelligent eco-assistant can persuade hotel guests and staff to reduce electricity use by up to a third.
My Green Butler is a cloud-based system that monitors equipment connected to the internet and gives regular, environmentally friendly tips, such as suggesting guests switch off air conditioning units at night or recommending that they take shorter showers.
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Via computers, tablet devices or printouts, the system also advises staff to modify behaviour, such as lowering the temperature in rooms when they aren鈥檛 in use. The more the system is used, the more tailored its recommendations become, allowing it to feed back on what actions have the most impact.
鈥淓ncouraging people to follow suggestions is much easier than going up to them and saying, 鈥楽ave the planet鈥�,鈥� says Christopher Warren, founder of My Green Butler, which is based in Australia.
The system has been trialled at 10 sites across the UK, Australia, and France, including at two Disneyland Paris properties. Last month, My Green Butler reported that its technology can lead to 20 per cent cuts in gas use and a 33 per cent decline in electricity use.
Guests can choose whether they want to use the system, and an estimated 5000 people have opted in so far. Response to the AI has been largely positive, with only one of the 10 trial sites reporting people opting out.
Elaine Weidman-Grunewald at the AI Sustainability Center, a think tank in Sweden, says that the hotel assistant 鈥渟hows great potential to be an environmental helper鈥�, but that caution is needed over data collection, storage and use.
My Green Butler says it complies with the European Union鈥檚 data privacy regulations and that the company doesn鈥檛 sell data.
