Ernest is now live after four months with hospitality groups
October 7, 2026·2 min2 min read
The Denver-based travel and hospitality technology company, Lighthouse, has now launched Ernest, it's AI "teammate" for commercial teams.
The AI assistant, initially launched in June, works across Lighthouse's hospitality data, connectors, skills and workflows to help revenue and commercial teams turn data into decisions.
Lighthouse have said Ernest is designed specifically for hotel commercial teams, rather than being a "generic AI model adapted for the sector".
The company claims the key difference between Ernest and general-purpose AI is the data it can reason over.
Lighthouse monitors more than 3 billion hotel data points daily across more than 80,000 hotels, including real-time competitive set, pick-up and demand data.
This data is combined with hospitality-specific skills developed by Lighthouse's technology experts.
The company argues that simply connecting a generic AI model to a hotel's systems is not enough, with the initial integration representing only around 10% of the work required.
The remaining 90%, according to Lighthouse, involves maintaining connections, data definitions and security as hotel systems and policies change.
It said the first four months of Ernest deployments have helped build a standard library of skills, connectors and routines that will now be available to all customers.
Individual organisations can then configure Ernest around its own properties, portfolios and ways of working.
Sean Fitzpatrick, Lighthouse chief executive, said: "The customer response to Ernest over the last four months has been incredible," he said.
"We're moving past the hype and seeing real, demonstrable ROI right now."
"Ernest is working alongside hotel commercial teams like a true teammate, closing the gap between insight and revenue."
Juanjo Rodríguez, chief AI officer at Lighthouse, added: "Every skill we've shipped since June combines our vision for hospitality with real requests from real commercial teams," he said.
"That work is now off-the-shelf capability every customer gets from day one."
Lighthouse said hotel groups can either use Ernest independently or work with a team of specialist AI agents, dubbed a "Lighthouse Crew", to tailor the technology to their specific operations.
Jeff Hinkle, VP of revenue management at Stonebridge, said: "Hotel commercial teams have more data than ever, but it lives across multiple platforms and takes significant manual work to turn into a clear strategy."
Samantha Claridge, revenue manager at Maine Course Hospitality Group, said Ernest had quickly become part of the team's workflow.
"What impressed us most was how quickly Ernest understood our business, from Group Displacement to forecasting and budgeting," she said. "He's become a genuine part of our team, not just a tool we log into."
With general availability, Lighthouse is now extending the technology beyond its initial customer deployments as competition grows to establish how AI will be used across hotel revenue management, commercial strategy and day-to-day operations.
