Customer Experience University - Winning Loyalty & Engagement One Customer at a Time
Aug 14, 2026 · 9 min · 9 segments
The handheld device that once felt futuristic at The Ritz-Carlton is obsolete — but the standard it served isn’t. Joseph Michelli makes the case that AI doesn’t rewrite great service; it raises the…
Joseph MichelliHost
When I wrote the new gold standard about the Ritz-Carlton, the cutting-edge technology of the future was a handheld device that let a bellman look up your name before you reach the desk.
I've been thinking about that a lot lately, as leaders rush to retrofit their service operations with AI, co-pilots, chatbots, sentiment engines, the whole kit.
And underneath all of the excitement, there's a quiet fear, and I hear it in the room.
Does any of our old service wisdom still apply, or does this intelligent technology just rewrite the rules? Here's my answer, and 40 years of fieldwork stands behind it.
The brands that are going to win the AI era aren't throwing out their service standards.
and letting the technology carry the weight that standards were never meant to carry in the first place.
I call that the durable core, the part of great service that no gadget makes obsolete because it was never about the gadget.
So let me walk you through that durable core using three Ritz-Carlton standards that have outlasted every single device I've watched come and go.
When I wrote the new gold standard about the Ritz-Carlton, the cutting-edge technology of the future was a handheld device that let a bellman look up your name before you reach the desk.
I've been thinking about that a lot lately, as leaders rush to retrofit their service operations with AI, co-pilots, chatbots, sentiment engines, the whole kit.
And underneath all of the excitement, there's a quiet fear, and I hear it in the room.
Does any of our old service wisdom still apply, or does this intelligent technology just rewrite the rules? Here's my answer, and 40 years of fieldwork stands behind it.
The brands that are going to win the AI era aren't throwing out their service standards.
and letting the technology carry the weight that standards were never meant to carry in the first place.
I call that the durable core, the part of great service that no gadget makes obsolete because it was never about the gadget.
So let me walk you through that durable core using three Ritz-Carlton standards that have outlasted every single device I've watched come and go.
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