Premier Inn Owner Whitbread Automates Business Processes with Microsoft AI

Whitbread, the UK’s largest hotel chain and owner of Premier Inn, is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline its operations. The company has partnered closely with Microsoft to implement responsibly governed AI that can improve productivity and automate business processes, freeing up colleagues to focus on higher-value tasks such as serving guests.

Domenica Sabou, Senior Location Strategy and Data Manager at Whitbread, has been experimenting with Microsoft 365 Copilot to build an AI agent that assesses the potential success of new hotel locations. The agent combines factors like driving distances and local amenities to score them, providing a data-driven starting point for strategic business recommendations rather than relying on instinct or partial evidence.

Sabou emphasizes that while the AI provides valuable insights, human judgment is still essential in making decisions. ‘The judgement is still coming from you,’ she says. ‘You have to do that. And you’re just learning constantly about how to prompt, what not to prompt: the best way of doing things.’ This approach highlights the importance of balancing AI-driven data analysis with human critical thinking and oversight.

The project showcases Whitbread’s efforts to leverage agentic AI technology from Microsoft to automate data-heavy tasks. By using Copilot, Sabou has been able to build an agent that can assist her in making informed decisions about new hotel locations. This is just the beginning of Whitbread’s plans to scale its use of this technology.

Whitbread has established an AI Enablement Office and implemented a governance process for colleagues who want to develop agents beyond their own work and share them with others. The company considers factors like safety, ownership, and cost before allowing useful experiments to become shared services. This approach is crucial in ensuring the responsible adoption of AI across the organization.

Mark Smith, Whitbread’s Group CTO, sees this governance as a foundation for broader adoption. ‘When we get to the end of this, everybody will have the opportunity to build an agent,’ he says. The ambition is to drive more efficiency into their business while preserving frontline roles and ensuring that humans remain involved in critical decision-making.

The company’s agentic ambitions are built on a solid Copilot foundation, which has helped spread AI literacy throughout Whitbread. They began with a pilot involving 270 support-centre colleagues at the head office, amplified by a ‘Digital Heroes’ programme between September 2025 and March 2026. This initiative provided access to Copilot alongside training, practical sessions, and a community where people could share their experiences.

The Digital Heroes programme was designed to be broad, bringing together individuals from various functions such as commercial, finance, property, procurement, people, technology, and more. Smith notes that while the initial response to the new tool was positive, it wasn’t enough on its own. ‘We’re a budget hotel business; we need to justify every pound that we spend,’ he says.

Whitbread gathered feedback throughout the pilot, with colleagues reporting an average time savings of 24 minutes per day as a result of using Copilot. As a consequence, the company is now extending Copilot to 1,650 people across its support centre and multi-site hotel managers. The next phase focuses on fostering sustained use.

Emma Cluett, Head of Delivery Transformation in Whitbread’s Group Transformation function, has used Copilot to help her team build internal capability. Her group manages large programmes for the company, handling tasks like business cases, executive presentations, meeting organization, and stakeholder alignment. Cluett emphasizes that AI can never replace human oversight: ‘The decisions will never go away from that kind of human sense-check.’

However, through Copilot, her team has been able to avoid extra costs by leveraging the tool as an additional workforce support system. ‘We’ve been able to keep our team number quite static because we’ve used Copilot,’ she says.

Sabou also reports increased efficiency due to using Copilot, estimating that it has saved her a considerable amount of time over a year of experimentation. She describes her interaction style with the AI as ‘a backwards and forwards conversation between you and the AI.’ Sabou notes that asking questions is key in getting the most out of Copilot.

The Digital Heroes programme plays a crucial role in spreading confidence among colleagues when it comes to using Copilot. Christopher Adams, Business Change Manager in Technology and Data, and Harprit Takkar, Technical Product Specialist for Frontline and AI, have led group sessions, drop-ins, written guidance, and short recap videos alongside formal training.

Adams notes that the content must constantly change due to the rapid evolution of technology: ‘The material we used six months ago is out of date already.’ He and Takkar focus on providing colleagues with a platform for asking questions as well as demonstrating new features. This approach also enables the company to discover valuable ideas from those closest to the work.

During the pilot, colleagues developed over 60 role-specific use cases across eight functions. Some tasks were straightforward, such as summarizing meetings or finding information, while others used Copilot to research complex questions that previously required external advice.

As Whitbread continues to roll out Copilot for more people, Smith will be monitoring whether colleagues keep discovering new ways to utilize the tool and share their experiences. ‘I want to see more people grabbing me in the coffee shop to say it’s been fantastic and they’ve learned lots,’ he says.

Ultimately, the goal of AI is to accelerate business operations while driving value for guests and shareholders. Smith emphasizes that Whitbread aims to get its employees working better-quality tasks in a more productive manner.