#12 - Agentic Systems in Tourism: How AI ‘Digital Employees’ Crush Labour Shortages

Can’t hire fast enough? Agentic systems—AI-powered “digital employees” can shoulder sales follow-up, inbox triage, social media and even itinerary design for a fraction of today’s costs. In this Tourism AI Podcast episode, host Peter Pilarski talks with Jesse Anglen (CEO, Rapid Innovation) about building agentic workflows that solve tourism’s labour crunch without compromising high-touch service.🎧 Topics & Timestamps00:00 Intro01:00 What are agentic systems?03:15 Why tourism’s problem is too few humans, not AI displacement06:00 Heli-ski case study: remote lodge, luxury guests, zero spare staff10:30 Three levels of AI adoption (and why “free ChatGPT” isn’t enough) 15:40 Building blocks: Intelligence • Tools • Process • Memory21:00 Marketing & lead-nurture agents that cost 99 % less than agencies 27:30 MCP & A2A protocols—why tool-calling is now plug-and-play33:00 Preparing data & SOPs (the “unsexy” work that pays off)40:45 Future outlook: 1 % of salary, 100 % of the value44:55 How to start your first agentic pilot🔗 Resources• RapidInnovation.io• Download the free AI Tourism Adoption Toolkit — https://tourismai.network/toolkit• Join Tourism AI Network community — https://tain.circle.so/join?invitation_token=fe0945e29ada9906803fb2a3089c73ee19954c63-901aa2d6-9846-4076-a764-40b3b3760f40 🤝 Connect Jesse Anglen — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesseanglen/#tourismai AITourism #AgenticSystems #DigitalWorkforce #TourismAIagentic systems tourism,digital employees,AI workforce,tourism labour shortage,artificial intelligence in tourism,rapid innovation,jesse anglen,peter pilarski,tourism ai podcast,heli-ski lodge case study,ai marketing automation,model context protocol,mcP,a2a protocol,chatgpt plus,gemini 1.5,claude 3.5,travel tech,remote lodge operationsChapters (auto-detect OR paste into description) 0:00 Intro & episode goals 1:00 Meet Jesse Anglen / Rapid Innovation 2:30 Tourism’s labour crunch vs. AI “replacement” myth 6:00 Heli-ski lodge case study 8:45 Three levels of AI adoption 14:00 Paid vs free LLMs 17:00 Agentic building blocks 21:00 Marketing automation wins 27:30 Tool-calling via MCP 31:20 Data hygiene & SOPs 38:50 Quick-start experiments 40:45 Future cost curve 43:30 How to get started 44:55 Wrap-up & CTAs