Picture this: You use your hotel's app on your phone to ask for extra towels. Your phone rings and you hear that your delivery is ready. Open the door and you find a 3-foot-tall bellhop has arrived with your linens. Were you picturing a robot? Because at certain Hilton and Marriott hotels across California, a robot is what you'd find.

Even without a booth, Apple is looming large over CES. In a giant billboard that went up on the side of the Springhill Suites Marriott hotel near the Vegas strip late last week, Apple is touting the privacy features baked into the iPhone, telling people, "What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone." It's a clever and effective ad that plays off the classic Vegas slogan. In an age of regular data breaches and scary hacks, privacy and security have become a really big deal. Apple has made privacy a major component of its iPhone sales pitch for years, so while the ad might not mention Google, Samsung, or Amazon, it's clearly aimed at trolling Apple's biggest rivals and their somewhat laissez-faire approach to privacy.

Alexa is coming to your hotel room. Amazon this morning is announcing a new program called Alexa for Hospitality, designed to bring its voice assistant technology to everything from chain hotels to vacation rentals. The system can be customized to include key guest information, like checkout time or pool hours; allows guests to request services like housekeeping or room service; and can be configured to control "smart" hotel room functions, like adjusting the thermostat or raising the blinds. Marriott is Amazon's launch partner on the new platform, which is notable not only for the potential scale of this rollout, but also because the hotelier had been testing both Siri and Alexa devices ahead of today's news. According to Amazon, Marriott International will introduce the new Alexa experience at select properties in Marriott Hotels, Westin Hotels & Resorts, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, Aloft Hotels, and Autograph Collection Hotels starting this summer.

Visitors to Marriott hotels will soon be able to use Amazon Alexa to make their stays more enjoyable. "Alexa for Hospitality" lets guests ask Alexa -- via an in-room Amazon Echo -- for help with hotel information, booking guest services, playing music and managing room controls, such as lighting and temperature. We've seen hotels leverage Alexa before -- in 2016 Wynn's Las Vegas hotel installed an Echo in all 4,748 of its rooms, letting guests control environmental conditions with vocal commands. The Marriot partnership takes things further, giving the hotels the option to configure and customize voice-first features based on their specific property and guest offering. You'll be able to use Alexa to book a massage if the hotel has a spa, for example, or ask Alexa where the gym is located, if it has a fitness center.

The company's move to tie-up with hotels is another strategy to woo more users for its Echo devices.Amazon Echo owners spend an average of $1,700 a year on Amazon, more than the $1,300 Amazon Prime members are estimated to be spending a year on the e-commerce site, CNBC reported earlier this year, citing a report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Amazon.com Inc said on Tuesday that it has partnered with Marriott International Inc to help increase guest access to amenities with Alexa, through its voice-controlled device Echo, in an attempt to expand its presence in the hospitality industry. Alexa for hospitality would assist in providing services ranging from ordering room service to requesting housekeeping or calling the concierge for dinner recommendations without picking up the phone. The company said the partnership will start this summer at Marriott's select properties and the service will be available by invitation to other hotel chains. Several media reports had said that Marriott had tested both Apple Inc's Siri and Amazon's Alexa to select what was best suited for its hotels. Marriott did not comment specifically on Apple, but said it has "great relationships with a number of technology companies and is always open to exploring opportunities to innovate and better the guest experience."

Travel planning is incredibly stressful. Between researching options, paying for bookings, and organizing your itinerary, you may also have to contend with the risk of being beaten and dragged off planes. Machine intelligence can alleviate some of the pain points for both you and the travel companies you book with. Perhaps no one knows this better than Giorgos Zacharia, CTO of Kayak and holder of a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and machine learning from MIT. "AI is kind of a fashionable domain at present," he says, amused by the recent hype, "but we've been doing machine learning and AI at Kayak for a long time." Almost every aspect of your digital user experience is improved with AI.

Travel planning is incredibly stressful. Between researching options, paying for bookings, and organizing your itinerary, you may also have to contend with the risk of being beaten and dragged off planes. Machine intelligence can alleviate some of the pain points for both you and the travel companies you book with. Perhaps no one knows this better than Giorgos Zacharia, CTO of Kayak and holder of a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and machine learning from MIT. "AI is kind of a fashionable domain at present," he says, amused by the recent hype, "but we've been doing machine learning and AI at Kayak for a long time." Almost every aspect of your digital user experience is improved with AI. Your preferences towards specific seasons, hotel styles, and price parameters are carefully monitored so that you can be served results you're likely to book.

Travel planning is incredibly stressful. Between researching options, paying for bookings, and organizing your itinerary, you may also have to contend with the risk of being beaten and dragged off planes. Luckily, machine intelligence can alleviate some of the pain points for both you and the travel companies you book with. Perhaps no one knows this better than Giorgos Zacharia, CTO of Kayak and holder of a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and machine learning from MIT. "AI is kind of a fashionable domain at present," he says, amused by the recent hype, "but we've been doing machine learning and AI at Kayak for a long time." Almost every aspect of your digital user experience is improved with AI.