Articles tagged “kayak”

Kayak's Steve Hafner has seen everything in online travel, from the founding of airline-owned Orbitz to the AI era.

Don't expect Hafner to stick around for an extended period in the new executive chair role.

There's no doubt that an independent and privately held Kayak, freed from the broader considerations of Booking Holdings, could have benefited from focused investment and attention.

Google has been downplaying free organic links for many years. In the past year, its AI Overviews and other ad formats have basically forced travel companies to spend more for traffic. Kayak isn't the only player feeling the squeeze.

No one yet knows who will be the winners and losers in the agentic AI battle. Developments are happening too fast. But few would argue with the fact that the online travel agencies face a substantial disruption risk.

Kayak’s AI Mode goes from soft launch to debut, so customers can search for travel using natural language. Plus: The company dishes up data on holiday travel trends.

In this video from Skift Global Forum, McKinsey, Marriott, and Kayak discuss how understanding and acting on agentic AI’s potential could mark the winners and losers in the coming decade of travel innovation.

Leaders from the travel industry spoke at the Skift Global Forum about agentic AI and its potential impact.

AI was all the rage at the Skift Global Forum this week, with the industry’s top executives revealing excitement, and uncertainty, as the tech takes center stage in travel.

For now, Kayak’s challenge is less about technology than traveler behavior: convincing consumers to trust a conversational AI to handle bookings, and not just fall back on the familiar search box.