Start Guide

Everything you need to know to start supporting your guests from HostAI.

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The Basics

Create a Workspace

Everything in HostAI happens in your team’s workspace. Your workspace is where all communication, channels, and collaboration tools come together for your team. A new workspace is automatically created for your team at sign up but you have the ability to create multiple workspaces.

Read more here

Invite your Team Members

To add team members to your HostAI workspace, navigate to Settings → Members in your workspace. Admins can invite new members, manage their roles, and remove members as needed.

Import Your Listings

Connect your Property Management System (PMS) to HostAI to streamline guest communication within HostAI.

Once the listings are imported, you'll be able to manage guest conversations, automate responses, and track all interactions directly from your HostAI inbox. Please refer to our Property Management System docs here for more info about your PMS

Set Up Your Channels

To start handling communications across all the channels you talk to people on, you should begin by connecting your email, whatsapp number, or creating a business number:

Email – Link your bookings@ or support@ email to HostAI and centralize all email communication. This allows you to manage your guest queries from a single platform. For more information on connecting your email, check out the email setup guide.

WhatsApp Business – Manage inquiries from your WhatsApp Business account directly in HostAI. Sync your existing phone number or generate a new WhatsApp number through HostAI. Learn more about setting up WhatsApp in our docs here.

Business Phone Number – Integrate VoIP services to handle calls and SMS alongside emails and WhatsApp messages. Respond quickly, review transcripts, and maintain a unified guest experience. See how to set up your business phone number here.

Chat Widget: Add a custom chat widget to your company website, allowing site visitors to connect directly with your team, and manage these conversations through HostAI. Learn more about setting up the chat widget here.

Build custom inboxes

Flexible inboxes help you handle communications across your entire operation in HostAI, allowing you to create a dedicate inbox to manage guests, homeowners, contractors, and more. Learn how to:

1. Create Custom Inboxes – Set up dedicated inboxes based on contact types (e.g., Guest, Homeowner, Contractor). Each inbox can be tailored with its own tools and workflows to effectively handle specific communication needs. See more here

2. Customize Your Inbox with Fields – Add custom fields to your inbox to display relevant contact details, making it easy to view important information like homeowner status or last contact date directly in the sidebar. See more here.

3. Managing Inbox Workflows – Learn how to map incoming messages to the right contacts and inboxes, ensuring that communication stays organized. You’ll also see how to remap or unmap contacts as needed for a streamlined experience. See more here.

This setup allows you to centralize and customize your communication workflows, making it easier to keep conversations on track and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

Organize Your Inbox

Get to Inbox Zero

A clean inbox is the foundation of a strong support team, enabling your team to handle new messages with clarity and efficiency. Our Inbox Zero workflow keeps your inbox focused and actionable by turning every message into a to-do item.

Conversations flow through Todo, Follow-Up, and Done, helping you prioritize and clean up your inbox daily.

Learn more about the workflow here

Automate Messaging with AI

AI Messaging lets your team handle a high volume of inquiries quickly without sacrificing response quality. AI replies are generated for all messages, allowing your team to focus on more complex issues.

A faster response time translates to happier guests, and AI messaging ensures they're supported even during peak or off-hours. Learn more about best practices here

Tag Important Messages

Conversation Tags help categorize and prioritize guest messages, ensuring that critical issues like "Early Check-In Requests," "Broken Appliance," or "Refund Requests" are addressed promptly.

Tags can be applied automatically by the AI or manually by team members, making it easier to organize, filter, and prioritize conversations. Set up custom tags here

Label Important Reservations

Reservation Labels help teams categorize and manage bookings more effectively. Automatically apply labels based on rules—like labeling all reservations over $10,000 as "Big Ticket Guest"—or manually label unique bookings, such as "Family Stays."

Learn how to filter and manage reservations efficiently with reservation labels here

Work Together to Resolve Issues Fast

Collaborate directly within guest conversations, ensuring everyone stays aligned on key issues.

Use notes to leave updates or @mention teammates to bring their attention to specific conversations.

Mentions are tracked in a dedicated section of the inbox, ensuring no important communication is overlooked. Learn more here

Manage Your Knowledge Base

Teach Your AI

Your AI relies on the information it has to improve response quality. Teaching your AI, or adding new knowledge, ensures the AI has the most up-to-date and accurate details.

Knowledge can range from Wi-Fi passwords for specific listings to global company policies. You can apply this knowledge to one listing, multiple listings, or globally to all.

Learn more about how to teach your AI here