The AI Autopilot feature in Revenue Intelligence is an automated pricing engine designed to optimize your property's revenue by responding to market fluctuations in real time.
This guide explains how the system operates, how to configure your automation settings, and the manual controls in place to ensure you maintain total authority over your pricing strategy.
How Autopilot Works
Autopilot monitors market demand, competitor pricing, and your property's inventory 24/7. Instead of requiring a revenue manager to manually review and accept every suggestion, the engine automatically publishes price recommendations directly to your Property Management System (PMS) or Channel Manager.
- Frequency: The system recalculates and pushes updates as often as hourly whenever a significant market shift or booking event is detected.
- Automation: Recommendations are published automatically, ensuring your rates remain competitive even during off-business hours.
Configuration and Settings
To manage your automation preferences, navigate to the General Settings tab within the platform.
Steps to access and enable:
- Open the Revenue Intelligence platform.
- Click on the Account Menu (Settings icon) in the top right corner.
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Select Settings.
You will be redirected to the General tab of the Rate Management section.
- In the Autopilot settings section, toggle the switch to Autopilot ON.
- Specify the Smallest acceptable price change and your preference for Exclude the near future.
- Click Save Changes in the top right corner to activate.
Key Settings Defined
Setting |
Description |
|---|---|
| Smallest Acceptable Price Change | A filter that prevents the system from pushing updates for very small currency amounts. The system only pushes updates that meet or exceed this defined threshold. This applies to all recommendations, including those handled manually. |
| Exclude the Near Future | Allows you to define a window of time (e.g., 7 or 30 days) where Autopilot will not run. This is useful if you prefer manual control over immediate upcoming bookings. |
Safety and Guardrails
Autopilot operates within user-defined safety boundaries to ensure pricing remains aligned with your overall strategy.
Floor and Ceiling Rates
The system strictly respects the Floor (minimum) and Ceiling (maximum) rates defined in your Room Hierarchy settings. Autopilot will never publish a rate that falls outside of these safety parameters.
The Opportunities Dialog and Rate Locking
By clicking on a specific date in the Opportunities tab or Pickup Reports, you open the Opportunities Dialog. Here, you can manually override rates or "lock" them to prevent Autopilot from making changes.
- Lock All: Protects all room types for that specific date.
- Partial Lock: Use the checkboxes to lock only selected room types.
- Automatic Locking: When you manually override a rate or click Accept on a suggestion, the system automatically locks that room type. Once locked, the row appears greyed out in the dialog, ensuring your manual decision is protected from future updates.
Best Practice: The Shadow Phase
It is recommended to conduct a Shadow Phase for the first 7–14 days before enabling full automation. During this time:
- Keep Autopilot Disabled.
- Evaluate recommendations manually in the Opportunities tab.
- Adjust your safety limits (Floor/Ceiling rates) until you are comfortable with the system logic.
FAQ
What is the Opportunities Dialog?
The Opportunities Dialog is the detailed modal window that opens when you click on a specific stay date in the Opportunities tab or Pickup Reports.
It serves as your command center for that date, allowing you to review AI explanations, evaluate the financial impact of suggestions, and manually manage room-level rates.
How do I lock or unlock rates?
Locking ensures that Autopilot and bulk actions (like "Accept all") do not change your prices. There are three ways to manage locks within the Opportunities Dialog:
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Lock the entire date: Click the Lock All button at the bottom left to protect every room type for that specific date.
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Lock specific rooms: Select the checkboxes next to the room types you wish to protect, then click the Accept button.
Once room types are locked, they appear greyed out within the list. This visual change confirms the rates are published and now protected from any further automated or bulk updates.
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Unlocking: To return a rate to Autopilot management, click the lock icon next to the locked room type, and confirm you want to unlock. The padlock icon will disappear, and the room type will no longer be greyed out, indicating the rate is once again eligible for system-driven updates.
| ⓘ The Accept all button is designed for efficiency, but it will always ignore locked room types. This ensures your manual strategy is never accidentally overwritten during bulk updates. |
How do I identify a locked rate across the platform?
You can identify protected rates by looking for padlock icons in two main areas:
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In Pickup Reports (Calendar View):
- Closed Padlock 🔒: Indicates the entire date is fully locked.
- Open Padlock 🔓: Indicates a partial lock; some room types are locked while others remain open for Autopilot updates.
- In the Opportunities Dialog: A padlock icon appears directly next to each room type's rate. A blue padlock icon indicates that the rate will be locked after you accept or save the changes. In contrast, a black padlock icon over a greyed-out row indicates it's protected from any further automated or bulk updates.
What do the different checkmarks mean?
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Blue Checkmark: A system-recommended rate has been accepted and published.
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Orange Checkmark: Indicates a custom rate was manually entered and accepted. This action automatically locks the rate for that room type, preventing Autopilot or bulk actions from overriding your manual strategy.
What does the blue padlock icon mean?
A blue padlock icon appears when you manually override a recommendation by entering a custom price. This triggers an automatic lock as soon as you click outside the rate field, protecting that specific room rate from being changed by Autopilot or bulk actions.
Once you accept the rate and reopen the Opportunities Dialog, the row will appear greyed out to confirm your manual strategy is active and protected.
On the Pickup Reports calendar view, these manual rates are identified by an orange checkmark, indicating that a custom rate was pushed instead of the system-recommended one (which uses a blue checkmark).
Can I exclude local festivals or holidays?
Yes. You can manually apply a lock to specific high-demand dates to ensure they are handled manually while leaving the rest of the month on Autopilot. For a detailed look at calendar management, see Month View per Hotel in Pickup Reports.