TECHNOLOGY
What does the growth of AI mean for the winter sports industry? ENVISIONING AN AI-POWERED FUTURE
By Katie Brinton, Senior Editor, SAM
Boisvert—is an assistant professor of AI and the arts at the University of Florida and the CEO of think tank and creative agency futurePerfect Lab, which aims to harness the power of pop culture and emerging technology to support non- profits. The Train Has Left the Station Olivia Rowan: How do you see AI revo- lutionizing the ski industry? Where do you see the most value that we can get out of it? Dave Amirault: From an operator perspective, I think there’s a lot of value in AI helping to solve things we’re bad at. Fraud’s a big example. I think AI can have a lot of really good impacts there because fraud prevention relies on large datasets, which we’re bad at analyzing. And if AI can help us trim a little bit of the fraud off the front and back— wheth- er it’s on people scamming us at the gate or people scamming us on the credit card side—I think that’s really big. Operationally, we run a lot of heavy machinery. We use a lot of power at ski resorts. We use tons of water. And every day, we are amassing more and more data on labor, diesel fuel use, electricity
use, water use, all these things. If AI can help us streamline the way we analyze, sift, and sort that data to help us make better-educated decisions, that’s huge, because our accounting and BI (business intelligence) teams or business analysts, they don’t have time to do this. It also helps save us money. We all know our operations are wildly capital intensive, labor intensive, and resource intensive to run. And Mother Nature can come in and knock us out with a rainstorm at any moment. But it’s how we get knocked down and recover, and how wise we are in the resourcing, that can help deliver the bottom line for us. Then there’s stuff for the guest. Ski- ing is tough. It’s expensive. You don’t know where to park. Where the hell is ski school check-in? If we can help reduce the friction for new or existing guests, that’s just going to help people fall more in love with the sport and give them a higher propensity to come back and spend more and then bring their friends. We compete against all these other things: cruise ships, Yankee Stadium, Topgolf. You name it, that’s what we’re up against. We don’t compete against
AI tools are already reshaping the way we search, shop, schedule, and synthesize data. Whether you active- ly seek out AI to take your meeting notes, write your policy documents, or answer your customer service questions, AI integrations in the apps, software, and web browsers you do use are growing exponentially. In the ski industry, AI is powering website chatbots, analyzing ticketing data, and even surveilling lift operations. For all that AI can already do, though, experts say we’ve just begun to tap its potential. In conversations with Eternity’s Mike Lannen and SAM —in the persons of publisher Olivia Rowan and mar- keting director Karolyn Towle—Dave Amirault and Heidi Boisvert talk about the future of AI and what its growth potential might mean for the winter sports industry. Amirault is a veteran ski indus- try marketer and the chief innovation officer for SNOW Partners, where he is exploring the use of AI for data analysis, website optimization, and more. Bois- vert—who grew up skiing at McIntyre, N.H., now owned by her cousin Ross
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