HiJiffy's Email Copilot drafts the reply and keeps Send locked until the gaps are filled

HiJiffy has launched Email Copilot, an AI assistant inside its console that drafts email replies for reservations and front desk teams. Nothing leaves the property until a person has read it.

The pitch rests on a gap between how fast hotel teams think they answer and how long guests actually wait. HiJiffy cites an EmailAnalytics study of 27.7 million emails in the first quarter of 2026 which found hospitality teams reply in 4 hours 50 minutes of working time, while the guest waits about 14 hours 58 minutes. The difference is mail that lands outside working hours and sits until morning.

How it works

Drafting starts the moment an email arrives rather than when someone opens it, so a suggestion can be waiting in the thread. Three agents run in sequence: one matches the request to the property's answer templates, one searches its knowledge base, and one merges both into a reply. An email that asks several unrelated questions gets answered in a single draft. The agents can also adjust tone, translate into any language the console supports, and summarise a long thread.

Each suggestion carries an Insights panel listing the templates, knowledge base documents and web pages it drew on. Where information is missing or a human decision is needed, the draft gets a visible tag and the Send button stays locked until every tag is resolved. Sent mail is labelled as AI generated or AI assisted, and a report tracks adoption, time saved and the gaps the system keeps hitting in the knowledge base.

"We didn't build Email Copilot to replace the reservations team," said Tiago Araújo, HiJiffy's chief executive and co-founder. On the locked Send button, chief technology officer and co-founder José Mendonça said: "That's why every suggestion shows where it came from, and the Send button stays locked while information is missing."

The pilot number

At Oliva Nova, HiJiffy says response time fell from five days to one during peak season. Reservations manager Ainoa Martín said a proposal that used to take about 30 minutes now takes five to seven, because she only adds the options.

That is one property, reported by the vendor, during a season where five days was the baseline. Treat it as a direction rather than a benchmark.

What it does not say

Two absences matter for anyone sizing this up. There is no mention of a PMS integration, which means the draft is built from templates, the knowledge base and web content rather than from the reservation in front of the guest. For a rate or availability question, a system that cannot see the booking is drafting from general information, and the person sending still has to check it against the PMS.

Pricing is also absent. Email Copilot is available now as an add on for HiJiffy customers on Aplysia 3, with no plan or price stated.

Why it is worth watching anyway

The design choice here is the interesting part. Most AI messaging tools sold to hotels this year have pushed towards autonomy, with the vendor arguing about what share of conversations can be handled without a human. HiJiffy has done the opposite and made the human the gate, with provenance shown on every draft and the send blocked while anything is unresolved.

That is a harder product to demo and an easier one to govern. For a reservations team that has been told to use AI but cannot risk a wrong quote going out under the hotel's name, the locked button is the feature.