Shipmate

Voice-first, digital concierge for guest services teams and crew on cruise ships and hotels.

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Shipmate: AI-Powered Guest Management for Cruise Hospitality

Inspiration

Cruise ship crew members face unique challenges. Imagine trying to remember preferences, dietary restrictions, and conversation threads for hundreds of guests while at sea with unreliable internet connectivity. Traditional systems are either too complex, require constant connectivity, or lack the intelligence to surface meaningful insights.

Shipmate was born from a simple question: What if crew members had an intelligent companion that worked offline, listened to their observations, and helped them deliver truly personalized service?

What We Built

Shipmate is a mobile-first, AI-powered guest profile management system designed specifically for cruise ship hospitality staff. Here's what makes it special:

Core Features:

Voice-to-Text Notes

Crew can record observations hands-free, with automatic transcription.

AI-Powered Enrichment

Google Gemini analyzes notes (unstructured data) to extract preferences, dietary needs, special occasions, and conversation topics, and updates guest profile (structured data), at the click of a button.

Intelligent Insights

AI suggests personalized service opportunities, conversation starters and service recovery ideas based on accumulated notes.

Offline-First Architecture

Full functionality without internet connectivity—critical for maritime environments

How We Built It

Technology Stack:

Frontend: Flutter for cross-platform mobile development Local Database: Hive (NoSQL) for lightning-fast offline storage AI Integration: Google Gemini API for natural language processing and enrichment

What We Learned

Offline-first is hard but worth it. Thinking about connectivity as optional rather than required fundamentally changes your architecture

AI as an assistant, not autopilot. In many sectors, such as hospitality, the human touch is what customers are paying for. In such industries, the best AI features suggest and enhance, but keep humans in control.

Voice interfaces are powerful. Hands-free note-taking dramatically improves crew workflow

Impact & Future Vision

Shipmate transforms how crew members interact with guest data—from tedious data entry to natural conversations.

Future Roadmap:

Multi-language support for international crew Photo recognition for guest identification Predictive analytics for service opportunities Integration with ship systems (dining, excursions) Crew-to-crew handoff notes for shift changes

Shipmate isn't just an app—it's a companion that helps hospitality professionals do what they do best: create unforgettable experiences.

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