Brand USA & AI
It’s been two years since the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has kicked off a period of exponential change not just for the future of tourism, but the future of work. Brand USA is committed to ensuring the U.S. tourism and travel industry leads the globe in thought leadership and responsible adoption of AI tools to build a resilient workforce and create best-in-class experiences for international visitors.
As Janette Roush, SVP Innovation and Chief AI Officer, shared in her Leadership Alignment with Generative AI session at Brand USA Travel Week, the potential is enormous, but only if our organizations invest in training and creating a safe space for staff to experiment with these tools.
Her framework for adoption is threefold:
- Start Small, Think Big
Small efficiencies lead to transformative use cases. When teams understand how generative AI operates in simple tasks like summarizing PDFs, they begin to imagine and create more sophisticated solutions—like custom tools that could revolutionize how organizations serve their stakeholders. - Align Leadership & Learning
Success requires both top-down support and bottom-up innovation. Executive buy-in signals that AI exploration is not just permitted but encouraged. Meanwhile, subject matter experts across the organization discover the most valuable opportunities to enhance workflows through AI because they understand the nuances of their daily work. - Lead with Wonder
The greatest barrier to AI adoption isn't technological—it's psychological. While "improving efficiency" might sound practical, it won’t nurture the culture of curiosity that will drive innovation in our industry. Have fun with this!
Looking for ways to get started?
- Create guidelines for your staff; clear boundaries on what should not be shared with these tools will encourage the right kind of exploration. Kara Franker and Roxanne Steinhoff have done excellent work on this front, and you can learn more at visitestespark.com/ai.
- Invest in secure access to a frontier model. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini all offer team plans for smaller organizations and enterprise plans for larger ones. These plans offer SOC 2 compliance to keep your data secure and prevent the models from being trained on the information you input.
- Organizing a conference? Add 101 workshops where newcomers can learn the basics and idea exchanges for advanced users. Reach out to Janette if you’re interested in learning more about this approach.
What’s next for Brand USA’s approach to AI adoption? Staff training is underway, guidelines have been drafted and access to Team accounts for ChatGPT and Claude.ai are being rolled out to the company. Janette will keynote and provide education at upcoming industry events, including the Minnesota Tourism Conference and Travel South USA Global Week.
DMOs are invited to participate in the 2025 AI Opener for Destinations program where Janette serves as an expert advisor. Initiated by Group NAO in Europe and delivered by Miles Partnership in North America, this yearlong educational program offers 12 monthly live sessions that address complex questions about ethics and change management along with practical takeaways to keep your DMO at the forefront of this technology. Interested in learning more? Click here.
In 2025, Brand USA will launch monthly introductory AI training sessions for the industry along with a monthly idea exchange for advanced users. Additional information will be coming soon!
Since transparency is one of Brand USA’s core values in working with generative AI, please know that this content was human-generated and that Brand USA’s framework was generated through an iterative process of many long conversations with Claude.ai about the needs of the industry.