profitize Talk with Mark Nardi

Tools only reveal their value when used correctly. What applies to traditional hand tools also applies to artificial intelligence. Only when it is used correctly does it create real added value. In an interview, profitize Chief Technology Officer Mark Nardi explains how the platform will have developed technically by 2025, why clean data is the basis for every decision, and why AI in the hotel industry should remain one thing above all else: a tool used correctly.

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Mark, 2025 was an intense year for you – both personally and professionally. How do you look back on it?

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I have become a father, and that changes your perspective on many things. Time takes on a different significance. You think more carefully about how to structure your day, where you can have the greatest impact, and which tasks really make a difference. This doesn't mean you do everything differently, but rather that you prioritise more consciously. Processes are further developed where they specifically support the product and the team. The bottom line is that I work in a more focused and clearer manner today.

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You also appeared as a speaker for the first time in 2025. How did you find that experience?

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For me, this was definitely a step outside my comfort zone. Normally, I work behind the scenes with the team on the product. Standing on stage and talking about technology is not part of my everyday routine. That made the discussion afterwards all the more exciting. The feedback from people who work intensively with AI was particularly valuable. It confirmed that our approach – clean data, clear models, practical application – is heading in exactly the right direction.

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If you look back at profitize in 2025: from your perspective, what were the most important technological milestones?

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Clearly the data foundation. Without clean, structured data, all interpretations, forecasts, or alerts are worthless. That may sound trivial, but in practice it’s extremely challenging - especially in the hospitality industry with its many upstream systems. We invested a lot of time here and made major progress.

The second point was the targeted integration of AI features. Not in the sense of “AI for AI’s sake,” but always guided by the question: which concrete problems in everyday hotel operations can be solved better this way? We closely monitor what’s happening with major players like OpenAI, Microsoft, or Google, and then consider how to meaningfully embed these developments into our product.

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How do hotels notice these developments in their day-to-day operations?

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A good example is the automatic categorization of transactions by profitize. For many, this sounds simple, but technically it’s extremely complex. Booking texts are often inconsistent, multilingual, erroneous, or formatted differently. Modern AI can understand the context. If an entry says something like “Energy costs November,” the system reliably recognizes what it refers to - regardless of language or spelling. This saves an enormous amount of time and ensures that analyses are actually reliable.

Another area is our customized reports. Hotels can define for themselves which key figures are relevant to them and how they want them to be presented. The analyses are then delivered regularly - along with interpretation and pointers to possible causes. Especially during stressful periods, this helps reduce complexity and gain clarity more quickly.

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One topic that you developed significantly in 2025 is the relationship between personnel deployment and demand. What is behind this?

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We link forecasts with working time data. If it is foreseeable that a busy week is ahead and many employees are absent at the same time, the system can make suggestions on how to adjust shifts or redistribute capacities. These are not rigid guidelines, but rather decision-making aids. For hotels, this means better service quality and greater control over costs. This feature will be rolled out more widely in 2026.

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What makes working with data in the hotel industry still so challenging?

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Data supply remains a constant challenge. Hotels work with very different systems, some of which are technically very modern, while others have evolved over time. We are often the first to request certain data. Then we work together to build interfaces. However, the trend is clearly moving towards greater standardisation.

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Many people associate AI primarily with chatbots. What role does it play at your company?

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We make a clear distinction between specialized models for financial logic and large language models.

Forecasting, outlier detection and categorization are carried out using our own algorithms, which we developed specifically for the hotel industry and which take into account factors such as seasonality, rate plans and multi-property structures. We use language models where understanding is key: they explain results, help configure reports and translate complex key figures into everyday language.

A KPI is only helpful if you understand it. But decisions are always made by humans. AI provides tools, not judgements.

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What is currently your greatest asset at profitize?

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From a technical perspective, our platform logic and stable database. From a human perspective, definitely the team. We have people who are genuinely interested in the hotel industry and want to understand how businesses really work. You can see that in the product and in our interactions with customers.

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What will you be focusing on in 2026?

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On the one hand, deeper integration of catering, especially in terms of cost of goods and purchasing. On the other hand, internationalisation – issues such as currencies, time zones and chain structures play a very important role. And finally, collaboration: multiple users should be able to work simultaneously, changes should be traceable, and the interface should be more tailored to different roles.

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If you could have any feature you wanted, with no budget or time constraints, what would it be?

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Accounting directly in profitize, with a shared database for hotels and tax advisors. This would simplify many processes and significantly increase the timeliness of the figures.

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What would you say to hoteliers who are still sceptical about AI?

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AI is a tool. It saves time, reduces errors and creates a better basis for decision-making. Responsibility always remains with humans. Those who engage with it early on make better decisions more quickly. Those who wait too long run the risk of falling behind.

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Dear Mark, thank you for the interview!

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