SILICON VALLEY — By Matt Ress, AI Bee Reel Staff

February 14, 2026

ORLANDO, Fla. — A soaking wet guest stood dripping in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt today, screaming "I NEED A TOWEL" at a touchscreen kiosk that cheerfully ignored his plea. Instead of alerting housekeeping, the machine simply turned up the volume on its smooth jazz playlist and offered to upgrade his loyalty status to "Platinum" for a small monthly fee.

"Our data shows guests don’t actually want towels, they want engagement," said Marcus Thorne, VP of Guest Happiness. "While Mr. Miller claims he is cold and wet, our AI algorithms determined he is actually ‘sales-ready.’ We are fixing the problem of boring human service by replacing it with exciting upsell opportunities." Hotel staff report that while they enjoy not having to talk to guests, the screaming in the lobby has increased by 400%.

"A human employee would just hand him a towel, which is lazy," explained Linda Chen, Director of Digital Screens. "Our AI kiosk creates a journey. It challenges the guest to prove they really want dry skin by navigating six sub-menus and declining three credit card offers." Witnesses confirmed Miller was last seen trying to type his room number with wet fingers while the machine asked him to rate his check-in experience.

At press time, the kiosk had successfully charged Miller for a "Late Checkout" package while he shivered uncontrollably on the linoleum.

Inspired by the real story: Hotels are rapidly adopting AI tools that staff enjoy using, but guests often feel frustrated by the lack of human help. Read the full story.