ZUZU Hospitality Pilots AI Hotel Platform Kea in Queenstown

Key points

• ZUZU Hospitality is piloting Kea, an AI platform for independent hotels, in Queenstown just seven weeks after the idea was first pitched in July.
• The platform runs customized AI solutions on top of a hotel's existing systems and data, targeting two core issues: fragmented systems and ill-fitting generic software.
• The pilot is backed by Technology Queenstown and involves roughly 15 Queenstown-Lakes hoteliers over about six months.
• ZUZU currently works with around 3,000 hotels across Southeast Asia and plans to expand across its Southeast Asian and New Zealand client base after the pilot, with global rollout as the longer-term goal.
• ZUZU's CEO said success metrics include hotels being able to access and use their own data, making smarter decisions faster, and teams spending more time on guest experience.
• The platform's core conversational intelligence is powered by OpenAI's GPT-5.6 model, with Google Gemini's 'Grounding with Google Maps' feature used for complex trip planning.