Interview with Axify founder Bianca Brady
After closing out $1.37 million in an oversubscribed external funding round, Axify founder, Bianca Brady discusses how AI is transforming hospitality operations, enhancing staff roles and recovering missed revenue opportunities.
With staff shortages and rising costs reshaping hospitality, some venues are looking to innovative solutions with artificial intelligence to streamline processes.
Bianca Brady – through her business, Axify – is attempting to support this by merging technology with existing telephone booking systems to help put opportunities back on the table and redefine service delivery.
Today, Brady shares how she believes that can be done through the use of AI – by tackling operational challenges, augmenting venue staff roles and even capturing new revenue streams.
What trends or economic pressures are currently driving the adoption of AI and automation within the hospitality industry and how do you see the technology reshaping the way venues operate?
The hospitality industry is facing a convergence of challenges, such as labour shortages, rising operational costs and increasing consumer demand for seamless, personalised experiences. These economic pressures are pushing venues to explore AI and automation as solutions to maintain operational efficiency without compromising the guest experience. The technology is reshaping how venues operate by streamlining tasks like customer engagement, booking management and non-converted opportunity analysis. AI can handle high-volume, increasing complex interactions, allowing venues to deliver an elevated guest experience by refocusing human resources back into in-person service.
How does Axify directly impact revenue streams for venues – particularly in terms of missed bookings and customer engagement?
Axify directly boosts revenue for venues by ensuring they never miss bookings due to unanswered calls. By handling inbound enquiries and reservations autonomously, our AI agent, Axi, ensures that every customer enquiry is addressed – whether it’s a booking or a general enquiry. Many venues see up around 30% of missed booking opportunities due to busy lines or after-hours inquiries – Axi captures these lost opportunities and turns them into confirmed reservations.
In addition, Axi enhances customer engagement by providing immediate and accurate responses, further encouraging customer loyalty and repeat visits, which are essential revenue drivers.
With Axi taking over inbound calls and bookings for your clients, what shifts have you observed in how hospitality staff are utilised – is there a redefinition of roles?
Absolutely. What we’ve seen is that Axi doesn’t replace staff but rather enhances their roles. With Axi handling interactions like bookings and inquiries, staff are freed up to focus on delivering exceptional in-person experiences, where the human touch matters most. They can spend more time connecting with guests, managing service, enhancing overall in-venue atmosphere – or for reservations teams, driving business development opportunities like corporate events and functions.
This shift allows for better service, more personalised interactions and a less stressful work environment, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and staff morale. AI like Axi, enhances human roles by enabling staff to focus on what they do best—creating memorable, human-centered experiences.
What is the biggest risk of integrating AI like Axi into hospitality operations and how can venues mitigate that risk?
The biggest risk when integrating AI is the potential for it to feel impersonal or detached, which could impact customer experience. To mitigate this, it’s essential to ensure that the AI complements human interactions, rather than replaces them. This involves creating AI systems, like Axi, that are intelligent, continuously learning, highly customisable and that work in alignment with the venue’s operational flow and desired guest experience to bridge the digital and physical environments.
Additionally, ongoing monitoring and fine-tuning of the AI’s performance, based on customer feedback and interaction data, help ensure that it continuously improves and adapts to evolving needs, keeping the guest experience seamless and engaging.
Through the integration of Axify into existing systems, what challenges have you encountered when implementing across various businesses with differing setups? How has your team navigated these challenges to maintain seamless operations?
Each venue operates with different systems, such as reservation management software, phone infrastructures and internal processes. We navigate a smooth integration of Axi into existing workflows by creating a flexible and adaptable architecture for various tech stacks and by working closely with each venue to customise integration to their specific functionality needs.
Our team places a strong emphasis on a thorough discovery and onboarding process, followed by close monitoring and feedback for the AI and business over the early weeks as we launch and iterate, allowing the AI to learn and improve as real customer interactions come in.
Can you share insights on how Axi personalises the booking process for customers and how this contributes to loyalty and satisfaction?
At this stage of the journey, we are ensuring that Axi can offer engagement experiences that guests are used to across their favourite venues. Looking forward in our product roadmap, Axi will personalise the booking process by leveraging customer data to recognise repeat guests, their preferences and past interactions.
This will allow the AI to offer tailored recommendations and a seamless booking experience. For instance, Axi can suggest favourite dining times, seating preferences or special requests based on past visits. This personalised approach makes customers feel valued and understood, which naturally contributes to increased loyalty and satisfaction. By remembering details and anticipating needs, Axi creates a seamless and personalised experience that strengthens the relationship between the venue and the guest.
As AI continues to evolve, what is your vision for Axify’s role in the next five to ten years? Are there any future capabilities you’re excited to introduce as part of the product roadmap?
Over the next five to ten years, we envision Axify becoming an even more integrated and essential part of a venue’s operations. Our goal is to develop Axi into a multi-functional, omnichannel assistant, capable of managing every aspect of the venue’s customer engagement — from digital voice interactions to personalised marketing and loyalty engagement support.
We’re particularly excited about expanding Axi’s capabilities in predictive abilities, allowing it to not only respond to customer needs but anticipate them, driving even more tailored experiences. Additionally, we are exploring deeper AI-driven insights to help operators optimise their offerings with rich conversational data.
This interview has been edited for clarity and consistency.
