no paywall: https://archive.is/REq3N
The closest thing I've stayed in, which is also present in Austin, is CitizenM. CitizenM does not feature robots but has a very minimal staff by virtue of allowing you (and the staff) to do most things in an app - self-checkins, requesting cleaning, controlling the lights/shades/TV. The rooms are about 50% the size of a normal hotel room, the hotel room equivalent of a tiny house, are all identical (no variation on floor plan or bed size, etc), and 50% the cost of an equivalent hotel in terms of location/amenities. It's easy to imagine taking this further with physical automation.
We stayed in a robot hotel in NYC, the Yotel. I liked the automation part, but the hotel itself felt kind of cheap: drafty room and low water pressure amongst other things.
Drafty usually means loud - which is the one thing I'm a total stickler about.
I don't actually recall it being loud. We were there during a horrible cold snap, though, and it wasn't very crowded.
We stayed at another hotel recently that handled everything online and sent your roomkey to your phone. I definitely like not needing to interact with a frontdesk person on arrival.
Who is doing the cleaning? Rumba? I want my rooms squeeky clean
Humans still clean and do other things. They just use robots where they actually work well
I actually prefer to give my passport to the receptionist and let her check me in, than filling in online forms myself. What else is there to "automate"?