Pricing Is Still a Human Opinion
The RevProf Panel's opinions About AI, Revenue Management, and What’s Actually at Stake
Earlier this month I sat in on RevProf’s webinar — Humans + Tech: The Next Frontier of Revenue Management — and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
The panel was genuinely good. Pedro Borges from PriceLabs, Gerard Murphy from Beyond, Andrew Kitchell from Wheelhouse, moderated by John An. These aren’t theorists. They’re the people actually building the tools revenue managers use every day. When they talk about where the technology is going, it’s worth listening. These are visionaries - genius-level folks.
The question on the table was the obvious one: is AI going to replace revenue managers?
The answer was more interesting than a simple yes or no.
The line that stuck with me
“Pricing is still a human opinion, informed by data.”
I don’t remember exactly who said it — the conversation moved quickly — but that line landed, and it’s the one I’ve been carrying into my work this week.
Because it’s precisely right. The tools are getting better. The data is getting richer.
Dynamic pricing algorithms are more sophisticated than they were two years ago, and they’ll be more sophisticated two years from now - maybe even notably more sophisticated two months from now. AI can process signals that no human could track manually — competitor rate changes, event calendars, demand curves, booking window patterns.
And at the end of all of it, someone still has to make a judgment call. What does this market mean for this property right now? What does this guest profile require? What is the right rate for tonight, given everything we know?
That’s still a human layer.
But here’s where I push back — on all of us
The framing of “will AI replace revenue managers” is the wrong question. It lets people off the hook.
The right question is: are you using these tools in a way that makes your judgment better? Or are you outsourcing your judgment to them entirely and calling it a strategy?
Because there’s a version of this that goes badly for a lot of operators. Not the version where AI takes over. The version where someone sets up a dynamic pricing tool, turns it on, and assumes the work is done. Where the software is making decisions the operator doesn’t fully understand, in a direction the operator isn’t actively steering, toward outcomes the operator isn’t regularly measuring.
The risk isn’t that AI replaces revenue managers. It’s that revenue managers stop doing the work that makes them irreplaceable.
What this actually means for boutique operators
If you’re managing 10 to 50 properties, the question isn’t whether to use pricing technology. You should. The data advantage is real and the operators not using it are at a measurable disadvantage.
But technology is not a strategy. It’s a tool. And a tool is only as good as the person holding it.
The operators who will outperform over the next few years aren’t the ones who found the best software. They’re the ones who built a real revenue strategy — clear metrics, clear targets, active decision-making, owner communication that reflects genuine understanding of performance — and then used technology to execute it better.
The ones who will struggle are the ones who treated the software as a replacement for that thinking.
Pricing is still a human opinion, informed by data. That’s not a limitation of the technology. It’s a description of the job.
The question is whether you’re showing up for it.
If you want to talk about how to build a revenue strategy that makes your tools work harder, The Trailhead is a good place to start.
