The conversation around Artificial Intelligence in the short-term rental (STR) industry has moved past the theoretical—it is now a matter of competitive advantage. If your PMC is currently operating in a high-cost environment, or if you are simply looking for the strategic edge that separates market leaders from the rest, AI is no longer optional.
At GuestyVal 2025, this concept was brought to life by Njål Eliasson, founder of DigiHome, a property management company in Norway, where few property management companies are able to stay profitable due to extremely high operational costs. Along with Francois Gouelo, cofounder and CEO of Enso Connect, he cut through the noise with concrete numbers and real implementations on how to use AI to not only stay profitable but to increase revenue.
As revealed by pioneers like DigiHome, the future of profitability hinges on aggressively automating processes and monetizing every guest interaction. This isn’t about replacing humans entirely; it’s about positioning the humans who utilize AI to decisively outperform those who don’t.
Face the profitability challenge head-on
The core tension in today’s STR market—especially in regions with high labor costs—is the rapidly shrinking margin available to property owners and managers. When operational overheads, such as cleaning and maintenance, consume a disproportionate portion of revenue, PMCs must ruthlessly pursue efficiency.
Especially for property managers in high-cost regions, or for those dealing with fluctuating market rates, automation is a matter of survival, not convenience. The strategic application of AI-powered solutions can dramatically reverse this trend.
The AI objective is to reduce manual labor in critical operational workflows, allowing you to either save the cost entirely or repurpose that labor for high-value tasks, such as marketing and brand building. For DigiHome, where cleaning alone costs upwards of $75 USD per hour, this was essential. They were able to replace logistics and coordination roles with AI “employees,” allowing them to recover those salaries and invest them elsewhere.
Double your profit per booking using proactive upsells
The biggest missed revenue opportunity for PMCs today is the failure to maximize revenue generated after a booking is confirmed. According to Francois, the immediate and most impactful use of AI is driving upsells, categorized into two critical buckets: operational and experiential.
Operational upsells are the low-hanging fruit: early check-in, late checkout, and mid-stay cleaning. If you are still giving these away to be “nice,” you are sacrificing pure profit. Experiential upsells—tours, local activities, partnerships with local businesses—carry even higher margins, as you often keep 100% of the profit.
The key to high conversion is proactivity and personalization.
Many hosts fail to capitalize on upsell potential by waiting for guests to request an extended stay or experience. Not only does this leave uncertainty (about rates or availability), but it also leaves money on the table. When you proactively offer upsells, both profits and conversion rates are much higher.
This is where AI comes in. AI enables personalization at scale, ensuring you deliver the right offer to the right guest at the right time. This means no more selling museum tickets to a bachelor party or club nights to a family of four. This targeted approach drives significant, measurable revenue uplift—often immediately upon implementation.
Njål shared that almost immediately upon implementing AI upsells, DigiHome experienced nearly a ten percent uplift in revenue, which was pure profit. He shared that his biggest driver was self-insuring through damage waivers—giving guests the option to protect themselves against accidental damage rather than holding security deposits.
Automate costly workflows with intelligent agents
Beyond customer-facing revenue, AI can revolutionize cost control by automating complex internal workflows that currently require significant human intervention. Njål provided a compelling example of building an AI agent to manage the entire damage and maintenance lifecycle.
Instead of needing a logistics coordinator to handle quote requests, owner approvals, and scheduling, AI can automate these tasks. An agent can dialogue with the guest to understand the full context of a damage claim, solicit quotes from maintenance companies, secure owner approval, and coordinate the repair schedule with the guest.
This automation is crucial for improving cost control, as it provides instant documentation for invoicing the cost to the appropriate party (guest or owner).
By automating these error-prone, high-headcount tasks, you gain much-needed stability and predictability in your operations while reducing costs.
Your four-step roadmap for AI implementation today
Implementing AI doesn’t require building proprietary solutions. It requires a clear, strategic roadmap focused on adoption and knowledge structure. Here are four steps to getting started on the right track:
- Appoint an AI Champion: Dedicate one person on your team to own the AI vision. This person’s job is to research new models, test applications, and drive adoption across the business.
- Adopt out-of-the-box solutions: Do not burn headcount on building custom tools. Utilize off-the-shelf, specialized solutions (like AI-powered guest experience platforms) that are designed for the complexities and guardrails of the vacation rental industry.
- Allow the AI Champion to spend money: Successful AI adoption requires experimentation. You must allocate a budget for testing new models and different product varieties to see what drives efficiency in your specific portfolio.
- Structure your knowledge base: The biggest barrier to AI success is unstructured data. AI cannot read your mind. You must clean up your systems (PMS custom fields, Google Docs, spreadsheets) and consolidate standard operating procedures (SOPs) into a single, structured knowledge base that AI tools can easily read and use to communicate and take action.
The bottom line
AI in property management isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s delivering measurable results in some of the world’s most challenging markets. Whether you’re operating in a high-cost market like Norway or facing competitive pressure anywhere else, the fundamentals remain the same. Finding that extra 10-15% margin through upsells, eliminating unnecessary overhead, or simply freeing up your team to focus on higher-value work—these aren’t luxuries. In an increasingly competitive landscape where margins are tightening and operational excellence is the price of entry, AI isn’t about getting ahead. It’s about not falling behind.
Watch the full session here.