AI in Travel

Expedia has been downsizing its workforce over the last year, and plowing some of the savings into machine learning and AI. It's a playbook that's taking place across industries.

Travelers say they aren't ready to let AI book a trip. The industry is spending billions anyway — and no one has answered the most basic question: who pays when AI agents get it wrong?

Can a destination turn a few seconds of interest into a concrete travel plan? Fiji’s AI Travel Planner is an early attempt to answer just that.

Sabre says it has rebuilt its technology and wants to be seen as an AI company. But the market will need to see more evidence that customers are signing on.

Aven is embedding MCP into the core system for thousands of hotels. It’s an early signal of how the newly independent company plans to position its infrastructure for AI-driven discovery.

The moment an AI agent handles the complexity of travel, the intermediation layer will have to answer why it exists — or at least why it commands the margin it does.

Amadeus has never committed to a multi-year earnings target before. Doing so now — while AI reshapes travel — raises a question the whole industry is watching: does value stay with the plumbing, or move to the interface?

Bilt is trying to thread a needle in building a hotel booking platform without becoming an OTA that hotels resent. One of its tactics is to offer spending data on its most loyal customers to help luxury hotels provide personalized service for first-time guests.

Amadeus has always been out-front about the adoption of new technologies, and this acquisition will strengthen its position in conversational AI.

Booking Holdings sees AI as the future of travel. Its Kayak brand's marketing doesn't touch on AI, but is trying to convince Millennials it's OK to book on smartphones and to use Kayak to navigate social media distractions.