Steve Singh’s latest business travel startup lands $6M for AI agent

How AI-powered search might impact travel discovery

These generations are born into and accustomed to smaller devices and generative technology. Generative platforms or superapps meet their preferences for convenience, accessibility, and speed in navigating online. However there’s a visual aspect of information that doesn’t exist in a query type conversational level. So generative on an “answer my question” level I think yes, but not on an inpirational level. Generative could put together a slideshow of images of the destination, but then it would need to be actual images, not generated images. Travel players would be wise to start future-proofing their search marketing roadmap today to ensure they stay relevant for travelers in this brave new world of AI search.

The prompt was for a flight from New York City to Vancouver in September. David Thompson, chief information officer for Amex GBT, discussed in detail how the company is moving AI pilots into the implementation phase. It’s a component of $100 million in savings opportunities the company expects to realize this year. The Labs team included Simon Tam, founding chief technology officer of Egencia, and founding leaders for the former Farecast company. That’s why the team is spending the next several months working out the kinks, Gulmann said, with plans to launch a beta version of the platform in December. As other AI-powered planners have shown, the tech is imperfect at this point.

So while AI is making strides in hospitality, its transformative potential will only be realized once the industry moves beyond departmental silos and adopts platforms capable of integrating data across the entire hotel ecosystem. This holistic approach is essential to achieving the sweeping changes the industry has been waiting for. By aggregating travel content, Google could finally diminish OTAs’ domination of search results, boosting direct bookings for hotels. Instead of OTAs cannibalizing existing demand with their behemoth marketing budgets ($16B spent in 2023) to appear at the top, hotels may enjoy a more prominent position in Google’s AI overviews or the Knowledge Graph. As the Skift test from March showed, the tech still needs some work  — but CEO Steve Hafner is hopeful that AI will lead to a better future for online travel booking companies.

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Google released Gemini Advanced in February with its most up-to-date AI model at the time. The platform is now getting an upgrade with Google’s latest AI model, Gemini 1.5 Pro, available in 35 languages. The trip-planning capability is coming to Gemini Advanced this summer. It’s more than just chatbots, and personally, the idea of a world dominated solely by chatbots is unsettling. The major implications will be in the way that information is found.

Our look at the most important tourism stories, including destination management, marketing, and development. “It would definitely be better to promote real-life people who exist and can form real opinions! There are so many travel creators out there who love Germany, have visited, and know the best destinations.

It can say, “Here
are three options” and then you choose one and then it can go and automatically
pay on your behalf, for example.So travel is a big one. Most people also don’t like flight websites,
they’re not the best optimized, it’s kind of a pain to use them, fill out all
the details and stuff. But you can now have this agent and it’s kind of like
your concierge service – you say do this for me and then you don’t have to
worry about anything.

Seamless Multi-Channel Booking Experiences

The digital-human interface further enhances the personalized experience, bridging the gap between technology and human-like customer service. The company launched its Intent Driven Search (IDS) platform in
early September this year. Google is advancing its AI-powered trip planning capabilities with the introduction of Gemini Advanced, a paid version of its generative AI chatbot. This tool can create personalized travel itineraries based on simple prompts, integrating flight and hotel information from Gmail. Additionally, Google is enhancing its AI Overviews feature in traditional search, making it available to all U.S. users and soon expanding to more countries.

“The hope is [recommendations] but I think there are still a lot of stories that we haven’t figured out in how to actually make a machine give good recommendations,” he said. The Navigating the Future report, which interviewed more than 300 industry executives, revealed that return on investment and lack of use cases were a further concern for 30% of respondents. Similarly, when it came to their internal data set up, 43% said it needed work to benefit from generative AI and 10% said “significant” work would be required. Anthropic is reportedly in talks to raise a round of capital at a valuation of between $30 billion and $40 billion. The company has raised nearly $8 billion so far at a valuation of $18.4 billion.

Products are already surfacing in more and more areas within standard search results. These could be directly within a search results page or directly within a Google Travel result. They are also showing up for an increasingly broad set of search terms. Otto, an AI-powered startup focused on business travel, has raised $6m in a seed funding round. Travel needs to develop “industry-wide AI-to-AI communication protocols that could help integrate fragmented travel data silos, enabling AI agents to collaborate seamlessly” and he said a neutral industry body could make this happen.

Ultimately, it’s about delivering meaningful, consumer-focused innovations. In the short term – the second option is because customers are already used to OTAs websites. There’s also a growing concern about maintaining the human touch in hospitality. While AI is on its way to becoming the new travel UI, developing the Human Intelligence (HI) element ChatGPT App will require time and continued advancements. However, as internet dynamics evolve, challenges emerge, particularly regarding data privacy and compliance. The storage of sensitive and personal data on these platforms may not always align with international or regional data protection regulations like GDPR or the users’ personal preferences.

• But it goes even farther; we wouldn’t try to build ourselves a database around restaurants or something like this, when we could have that data coming from AI itself.”
• This article has been updated to clarify that the AI chatbot had already been able to perform general searches.
• Concur founder and Madrona managing director Steve Singh acquired Direct Travel in April.

In other words, it makes the whole process of planning a trip a lot less tedious. All of these tactics involve some guesswork on what the future holds. The good news is that there really aren’t many recommendations that wouldn’t also be a good idea if nothing changes. It’s still really a matter of doing the right things, always with the end user in mind. The new funding will help Otto continue to develop its AI platform and expand its integration with business travel service providers. HomeToGo released its first AI mode around curated search a year ago with the company following up with a raft of AI developments including Smart Reviews and Smart Offer Summaries toward the end of 2023.

AI-driven platforms are revolutionizing travel planning by curating hyper-personalized itineraries based on real-time data. From flight recommendations to hotel bookings and local experiences, AI algorithms analyze a traveler’s preferences, past behaviors, and even social media activity to suggest the most relevant options. Trip.Best provides users with lists of the top hotels, attractions, restaurants and night life in destinations. Meanwhile, Trip.Deals finds the best deals on flights and accommodation. Anthropic, a generative AI startup and competitor to OpenAI, has introduced a new AI feature designed to mimic human travel agents by performing tasks such as moving a cursor and typing. This technology has the potential to automate travel planning, potentially bypassing traditional online travel agencies and transforming how travel bookings are made.

You can access GuideGeek through WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. When I asked for recommendations for a three-day road trip to a mountainous area near where I live, it gave me some good recommendations. Then, I followed up on the itinerary with questions about hotels and restaurants, and it returned suggestions for those as well. In total, using GuideGeek I was able to plan a complete trip (minus the time it takes to actually make reservations) in about 20 minutes.

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This is the time to revisit the data sources and insist on data that is acquired by developing integrations and using open APIs. As we rethink data practices, let’s create commercial incentives for data providers to create a robust infrastructure for data sharing. Travel is awash in practices that involve pulling publicly available data from the internet. These are tedious practices with results that are often inaccurate, inconsistent, and unreliable. Most importantly, these practices are not ethical unless the data providers have opted to be a part of the process. As the tech evolves, we have to acknowledge that the original premise will change.

Our reporter, Phil Stebbing, reports from Pukaha National Wildlife Centre, New Zealand, where we discover how they create opportunities for travellers to contribute positively to conservation efforts. Tobias Blask, Professor at the Department of Economics at Harz University of Applied Sciences, also emphasizes the importance travel chatbot of the data that AI applications can draw from. “The long-term vision for Emma is to establish her as a central, indispensable component of the GNTB’s digital communication strategy,” according to the tourism board’s press release. Booking.com has taken more time than competitors to release updates for its AI tool.

Accommodation and attraction booking can happen on-platform through our strategic partnerships. A huge part of our mission is to promote and foster more mindful tourism and fight overcrowding, so our itineraries include hidden gems and secret spots. The other part of our mission is to save people time and energy, so they can enjoy seeing the world.

AI can help shift the focus from transactional to experiential by creating immersive, tailored experiences that go beyond the ordinary. A Skift test in 2023 of Meta AI’s chatbot — based on the second version of its AI model — showed the tool was lacking, especially compared to competitors. While those metrics refer to technical measures, Skift is interested in how these models perform for travel. TripAdvisor first released its AI-powered trip planner, Trips, in July 2023 and has made updates since then. While executive tend not to talk publicly about AI as often as they did in 2023, many CEOs of the biggest travel companies still are.

AI technology is opening up new possibilities for travelers, especially when it comes to planning. Their pitch is to offer a new way to book, experience, and visualize holiday packages – i.e. tailored to a new generation. YGO say they are the only player in the industry that enables users to combine ChatGPT any experiences (like festivals, concerts, retreats, etc.) with flights and hotels and book it directly with their platform. AI chatbots have quickly become more common throughout the travel industry. It’s inevitable that more AI-driven chatbots will pop up to help travelers plan trips.

“So the concept is, if we can capture even just 1% of that, it’s a $1.6 billion market with $120 million in annual revenue,” Gulmann said. Two of the largest corporate travel agencies want to join forces to create a single giant. But the potential and volumes in the less known states and destinations are tremendous. We also see that sometimes the summers are quite hot in southern Europe, so we’re seeing a wider spread there. In the past couple of years, we’ve pared it back and focused on the top 200 destinations. We’ve made the model work right and proved that it’s a profitable and sustainable model.

The company, which has grown significantly since its separation from American Express, reported $6.3 billion in travel transactions last year. Amex GBT is acquiring CWT for $570 million, although regulatory scrutiny has delayed the merger. The company is focusing on integrating advanced software solutions, AI-driven automation, and sustainability tools to maintain its competitive edge and meet evolving market demands. His company competes with offline travel agents, and several Booking Holdings brands, including, Priceline, Booking.com, and Kayak have launched a variety of generative AI products, including trip-planners. Stippl allows travelers to plan their itineraries, find accommodation on platforms like Booking.com, discover and/or add transportation, and uncover tours and activities using GetYourGuide.com. Travelers also get to relive their experiences by creating instant travel videos using their own travel photos, and are able to follow friends or content creators they admire, and copy or personalize their itineraries.

Kayak was one of the first travel companies to announce a plugin on ChatGPT Plus. It allows ChatGPT to provide information and links about specific flights based on information from Kayak. The user starts with a prompt in everyday language about a specific destination. The tool then opens a full webpage with options for flights, lodging, and car rentals, along with AI-generated information about the destination. Meta AI recently released the newest version of its generative AI model, which it says outperforms that of OpenAI in nearly every metric.

Google’s machine learning algorithms will increasingly decide the type and placement of ads in their ecosystem, based on the endless wealth of user data it is capable of collecting and modeling. As more AI-powered answers take over the top space on result pages, current ad links will attract fewer user clicks over time. To ensure its golden goose keeps laying eggs, sponsored links will be gradually injected into AI answers, similar to what Bing already does in Search Copilot. Google will not give up on its $175 billion ad revenue in search for 2023 without a fight. Along with Ask Kayak, the company released a tool meant to read flight fare information from a screenshot and then search for a better price. Based on the tests that Skift has been able to do so far, none of the tools are as sharp as users would like — but those companies likely are farther ahead than those that have not started at all.

There’s no question that travel search is changing with generative AI, but the jury is out on who the big winners will be. Mindtrip is jumping onboard as travel companies attempt to seize the opportunity. “We experienced this with search and marketing – the big companies who could afford to spend versus the small who couldn’t. To really take advantage of AI, you need significant engineering capabilities and I don’t know if small companies will be able to afford that,” said the chairman of Agoda. We’re seeing more and more appetite for the travel activity space, which for years has been called the third pillar yet to be dug out and explored. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. We started a pilot with TripAdvisor a few weeks ago, but Viator is not part of this pilot.