There was a time when in-room TVs made for a dis­tinc­tive hotel expe­ri­ence. In fact, that’s an inno­va­tion Hilton touts from 1947. But con­sumers have clear­ly grown more demand­ing, which in turn, has forced savvy hotels to inno­vate fur­ther. And as one-time state-of-the-art ameni­ties like dig­i­tal keys and check-in become increas­ing­ly com­mon, the bar ris­es only high­er – and some hotel brands are turn­ing to robots as a result.

These hotels are test­ing out robots as both but­lers and concierges at indi­vid­ual loca­tions as they seek to cre­ate mem­o­rable guest expe­ri­ences – and to per­haps also gain some com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. So far, robots have the poten­tial to not only free up staff time, but to also per­son­al­ize guest stays and, at least for now, pro­vide a lit­tle sur­prise and delight. If the robot but­lers at CES 2016 are any indi­ca­tion, they may soon be old hat, too. But, in the mean­time, here are three hotel brands using robots to wow guests in unpre­dictable ways and to dri­ve engage­ment and loy­al­ty among con­sumers.

Hilton and Connie

Hilton and IBM recent­ly announced a part­ner­ship in which they debuted Con­nie, a Wat­son-enabled robot concierge at the hotel’s McLean, Vir­ginia loca­tion. Con­nie can tell guests about near­by tourist attrac­tions, give din­ing rec­om­men­da­tions and detail hotel fea­tures and ameni­ties. Named after Hilton’s founder – and Paris’ great-grand­fa­ther – Con­rad, the brand says Con­nie will work with Hilton staff to “assist with vis­i­tor requests, per­son­al­ize the guest expe­ri­ence and empow­er trav­el­ers with more infor­ma­tion to help them plan their trips.”

And because Con­nie is pow­ered by Wat­son, a cog­ni­tive com­put­ing plat­form that IBM says under­stands the world in a human-like man­ner – or via sens­es, learn­ing and expe­ri­ence, Con­nie is learn­ing to inter­act with guests and respond to their ques­tions in a “friend­ly and infor­ma­tive man­ner.” Fur­ther, the more that guests inter­act with Con­nie, the more it improves its rec­om­men­da­tions. And the hotel says it will have access to a log of guests’ ques­tions and Con­nie’s answers, which will enable fur­ther improve­ments. “We’re focused on reimag­in­ing the entire trav­el expe­ri­ence to make it smarter, eas­i­er and more enjoy­able for guests,” said Jonathan Wil­son, vice pres­i­dent of prod­uct inno­va­tion and brand ser­vices at Hilton World­wide, in a state­ment. “By tap­ping into inno­v­a­tive part­ners like IBM Wat­son, we’re wow­ing our guests in the most unpre­dictable ways.”

In addi­tion, Felix Laboy, CEO of Way­Blaz­er, an intel­li­gent search and dis­cov­ery sys­tem pow­ered by Wat­son, said the per­son­al­ized rec­om­men­da­tions from Con­nie – espe­cial­ly in the form of a robot – can help trans­form brand engage­ment and loy­al­ty. “Con­nie is an inno­v­a­tive approach to ser­vice and deliv­ery for Hilton guests. Through this new inter­ac­tive engage­ment, Con­nie is able to under­stand what the guest is search­ing or look­ing for, deliv­er an answer and pro­vide improved ser­vice over time,” Laboy says. “For instance, a major­i­ty of ques­tions that Way­Blaz­er answers is relat­ed to food and restau­rants. When a guest asks, ‘Can you rec­om­mend a restau­rant?” or, “Can you rec­om­mend an Ital­ian restau­rant?”

WayBlazer’s tech­nol­o­gy is able to under­stand the ques­tion and respond with rec­om­men­da­tions rel­e­vant to the Hilton McLean guest with great pho­tos, insights, menus, direc­tions and even dis­tance from the hotel. This pro­vides the abil­i­ty for guests to find infor­ma­tion in a quick, engag­ing and fun man­ner.” Fur­ther, since the launch, Laboy says Way­Blaz­er “con­fi­dent­ly makes rec­om­men­da­tions 93 per­cent of the time,” but that fig­ure is expect­ed to rise with Watson’s abil­i­ty to learn over time.

Aloft and A.L.O. the Botlr

But Hilton isn’t the only hotel brand work­ing with robots. In 2014, Star­wood brand Aloft Hotels, which calls itself the “tech-for­ward, inno­va­tion hub for mil­len­ni­al-mind­ed trav­el­ers,” unveiled A.L.O. as its first Botlr, or robot­ic but­ler, at its Cuper­ti­no, Cal­i­for­nia loca­tion. Unlike Con­nie, which is more infor­ma­tion­al, A.L.O. the Botlr deliv­ers ameni­ties to guest rooms, while wear­ing what Aloft described as a “cus­tom shrink-wrapped, vinyl col­lared uni­form and nametag” as it “mod­est­ly accepts tweets as tips.” In a release, Aloft not­ed A.L.O. would free up staff time, allow­ing employ­ees to “cre­ate a more per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence for guests and enhance the hotel’s cur­rent tech-for­ward offer­ings.”

Aloft said it was the first major hotel brand to hire a robot for front- and back-of-house duties. And, in a state­ment, Bri­an McGuin­ness, glob­al brand leader of Starwood’s Spe­cial­ty Select Brands, said, “A.L.O. has the work eth­ic of Wall‑E, the humor of Rosie from The Jet­sons and reminds me of my favorite child­hood robot, R2-D2. We are excit­ed to have it join our team.” Accord­ing to an Aloft rep, Botlr is still at Aloft Cuper­ti­no and has since debuted at Aloft Sil­i­con Val­ley as well. “Right now we only employ Botlr at these two hotels, but are cur­rent­ly test­ing oth­er inno­va­tions and tech­nolo­gies that we are look­ing to debut lat­er this year,” the rep added. A.L.O. hails from Savioke, a com­pa­ny that spe­cial­izes in robots for the hos­pi­tal­i­ty indus­try.

“In our ear­ly test­ing, all of us at Savioke have seen the look of delight on those guests who receive a room deliv­ery from a robot,” said Savioke CEO Steve Cousins in a state­ment. “We’ve also seen the front desk get busy at times and expect Botlr will be espe­cial­ly help­ful at those times, free­ing up human tal­ent to inter­act with guests on a per­son­al lev­el.” Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, it’s per­son­al­iza­tion that a Star­wood rep says real­ly sets the brand apart. “We col­lect data from every chan­nel and touch point that we have with our guests and [loy­al­ty pro­gram] Star­wood Pre­ferred Guest mem­bers, and we are able to use that infor­ma­tion to enhance the guest expe­ri­ence,” the rep says. “SPG’s focus on tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion — through our award-win­ning mobile app and the industry’s first Key­less Entry sys­tem called SPG Key­less — has also allowed us to offer guests more choice about the way they trav­el, as their mobile phone has tru­ly become the remote con­trol for their stay.”

Crowne Plaza and Dash

And in August 2015, IHG brand Crowne Plaza also began test­ing out a deliv­ery robot from Savioke at its San Jose-Sil­i­con Val­ley loca­tion. Per Crowne Plaza, the deliv­ery robot, Dash, enhances the guest expe­ri­ence by “pro­vid­ing quick and seam­less deliv­ery of snacks, tooth­brush­es and oth­er ameni­ties to hotel guests.”

When Dash arrives at a guest’s room, it phones to announce its arrival, deliv­ers the request­ed items and makes its way back to the front desk where it can dock itself into its own charg­ing sta­tion, the brand says. It’s about three feet tall, weighs less than 100 pounds and is designed to “trav­el at a human walk­ing pace.” It can inde­pen­dent­ly nav­i­gate between floors and call the ele­va­tor “using a spe­cial Wi-Fi con­nec­tion.” “Giv­en the hotel’s loca­tion in the heart of Sil­i­con Val­ley, it is a nat­ur­al fit to enhance our ser­vice deliv­ery pro­gram with the addi­tion of the lat­est in robot tech­nol­o­gy,” said Gina LaBarre, vice pres­i­dent of Amer­i­c­as brand man­age­ment at Crowne Plaza.

“We expect our guests to be impressed by the tech­no­log­i­cal sophis­ti­ca­tion of Dash and its abil­i­ty to deliv­er the qual­i­ty ser­vice they’ve come to expect from the brand.” Per a rep, the brand is still test­ing the robot con­cept at the Sil­i­con Val­ley loca­tion and has not yet deter­mined whether to roll out robots at oth­er prop­er­ties. And Con­nie, A.L.O. and Dash could be a sign of things to come. A Savioke rep says it recent­ly rolled out anoth­er robot but­ler, Wal­ly, at a Res­i­dence Inn near LAX.