Lighthouse Launches Ernest Crews to Get Hotel Commercial Teams Running on AI in As Little As 30 Days

Lighthouse, the AI Commercial Operating Platform for the travel and hospitality industry, has launched Ernest Crews: small teams of AI and technology specialists who embed with hotel companies to integrate Ernest, Lighthouse’s AI teammate for commercial teams, into their day-to-day operations. Working directly alongside each customer’s team, a dedicated Crew configures Ernest around the organization’s systems, processes and priorities, solving the adoption problem that stalls so many AI rollouts.

Forward-deployed teams are how the world’s leading AI companies put frontier technology to work inside complex organizations. Ernest Crews bring that model to hotel commercial teams for the first time. Over 30 to 60 days, from kickoff to production, each Crew pairs Lighthouse specialists with the customer’s team to connect Ernest across the commercial stack and bring revenue management, distribution, sales, and marketing workflows together in one place. 

Each Crew includes:

• A Captain, who owns the relationship and the outcome

• A Product Builder, who delivers new custom skills each week

• A Connector Builder, who completes integrations in days rather than months

• A Field Researcher, who sits with users and feeds what they learn back into the build

Together, they build the custom skills, connectors, and automations that encode each team’s way of working, from pricing need dates to delivering morning GM briefings in the customer’s own branded format. Guardrails are built in from the start, and every action Ernest takes is logged, reversible, and under the customer’s control.

“AI is transformational for hospitality businesses, but most companies are burning money on experiments that never deliver ROI.” said Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO of Lighthouse. “Crews solve that by embedding Lighthouse AI experts within the customer’s team, working together until Ernest works the way they want him to in a matter of weeks. That’s how AI investment turns into measurable results.” 

“A tech platform only creates value when it is actually used in production, every day, by real teams,” added Ivo Minjauw, Chief Product Officer at Lighthouse, who leads the Crews program. “Ernest is AI that wins in the lab and on the job. Crews are a product- and engineering-led function that builds in direct partnership with the customer, every step of the way. Ernest provides the foundation; the Crew delivers the final layer, tailoring an out-of-the-box product to exactly how each enterprise actually operates.”

Across hospitality, AI capability is racing ahead of adoption. According to the Lighthouse Commercial Leader Survey 2026, only 10 percent of hospitality leaders feel fully prepared for AI, while 67 percent expect it to have a major impact on their business. That gap reflects the difficulty of making AI work inside a real organization. Frontier models are highly capable, but they are generalists: they do not inherently understand an individual property, its market, or the systems its commercial team relies on. Ernest makes AI hospitality-specific; Crews make it customer-specific.

Hotel companies attempting to build similar capabilities on general-purpose models often face lengthy development cycles, complex security requirements, and a heavy dependence on scarce engineering resources. Ernest Crews offer a faster path. Each Crew designs Ernest around the organization’s technology, strategy, and workflows while building the trust employees need to rely on him for both commercial decision-making and action.

Viceroy Hotel Group was among the first hotel companies to work with an Ernest Crew. “What made the difference was the time the Crew spent with our people, understanding what they needed and how they actually work,” said Scott Muety, VP of Revenue & Distribution. “That hands-on partnership turned Ernest into something our teams could start using almost immediately.” The group is already seeing value from Ernest. “If you have a question from your owner, you don’t have to wait five hours for your Director of Revenue to pull the data,” said Patrick Pahlke, Chief Commercial Officer. “Ernest can give you the answer straight away.” Viceroy is continuing to roll Ernest out across its organization, including to General Managers.

Ernest Crews availability 

Ernest Crews are available now to management groups, ownership companies, chains, and hotel groups ready to embed Ernest across their commercial operations. Demand has been strong since Ernest launched in June, with multiple Crew engagements already underway. To maintain deployment quality as demand grows, Lighthouse is expanding the number of Crews throughout the remainder of 2026. Organizations can learn more and join the Ernest waitlist at askernest.ai to register their interest in the next wave of deployments.

About Lighthouse

Lighthouse is the AI Commercial Operating Platform for hospitality – the intelligence and automation layer that connects pricing, distribution, marketing, and performance management into a single system of action. Powered by the industry’s largest proprietary data network, spanning 80,000 hotels across 185 countries, Lighthouse delivers better commercial outcomes for global chains, regional groups, and independent hoteliers. Learn more at www.mylighthouse.com.

Media contact: [email protected].