We want to help you keep up with how brands across the travel industry are exploring - and using - generative artificial intelligence solutions from companies including OpenAI, Google and more. So we're surveying technology professionals at leading travel brands, and we'll be publishing their answers periodically here.
Andrew Phillips, chief technology officer at Skyscanner, is the latest to offer his thoughts on generative AI and its uses for the travel industry.
We began working with generative AI in … 2020 as part of Skyscanner’s personalization efforts for travelers. AI is being used to suggest and recommend themed destinations to travelers and to sort inventory results based on their preferences, inferred from search and redirect behavior.
Our current work with generative AI is focused on … several areas where we see the most promise for improving the traveler experience and our product. These range from marketing activities, to search advice and trip planning, to data enrichment and engineering productivity.
The biggest challenge for us related to generative AI is … learning what works and can drive tangible benefits, engagements and experiences for travelers, rather than shipping technology for technology’s sake.
For the travel industry overall, we see the most potential for generative AI to … uncover unique and interesting travel and destination alternatives; for example, in flight search our models found that travelers are willing to pay more for earlier departures and later returns in order to maximize the time spent in a particular destination.
One year from now … AI will be at the heart of Skyscanner, supercharging how we sort or recommend results to travelers, how we enable travelers to express their travel intents, and how we build our product internally.