The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is increasing across cruise lines, from customer service chatbots to the modernization of legacy booking systems. Three cruise lines have launched recent digital initiatives in this sector, exploring marketing automation, guest personalization and data integration.
Virgin Voyages deploys 50 AI agents
In October, Virgin Voyages announced a partnership with Google Cloud to deploy a fleet of 50 AI agents on Gemini Enterprise, powering a company-wide transformation.
Email Ellie, the cruise line's first AI-powered marketing assistant, generates hyper-personalized marketing outreach that helps Virgin reach more travelers without sacrificing authenticity. The AI agent was trained using internal brand frameworks and infused with Virgin Voyages' self-described “cheeky, clever tone,” to ensure consistency of messaging.
According to the cruise line, since Email Ellie was introduced, the marketing team “has reduced time spent on campaign copy creation by an estimated 40%, freeing up marketers to focus on higher-value initiatives, like spotlighting new itineraries and destinations—as well as advancing personalization efforts that tailor sailor communications and elevate brand storytelling.”
The cruise line also credits AI-generated campaigns for a 28% year-over-year increase in July sales.
“What excites me most about this partnership with Google Cloud is how it gives our teams back time to do what they do best—create joy, build connections and bring our brand to life,” said Nirmal Saverimuttu, CEO of Virgin Voyages.
“'Email Ellie' is just the beginning. It's already helped deliver record-breaking sales, and she's proof that AI agents scale our impact and amplify our human touches.”
AI steers business transformation at Royal Caribbean Group
Royal Caribbean Group has positioned AI as a key driver of its business transformation.
During the company’s third quarter 2025 earnings call, CEO Jason Liberty said, “We are focused on building a vacation platform that continues to lead the leisure market through innovative ships, a growing portfolio of exclusive destinations, technology and AI that enhance every step of the guest journey. Together, these high-return investments, strengthen guest loyalty and attract new travelers positioning us to win more share of the fast-growing $2 trillion vacation market.”
Our technology, our AI tools are getting smarter and smarter so that we're able to curate what is relevant to that consumer.
Jason Liberty, Royal Caribbean Group
The company is seeing benefits from its technology and AI applications, attracting new customers.
“Our technology, our AI tools are getting smarter and smarter so that we're able to curate what is relevant to that consumer,” Liberty said. “And that's drawing in more new-to-cruise, really seeing an elevated amount of increase first to brand. So, seeing people shift from other cruise lines to our brands, we've seen an elevated amount of that.”
Liberty told analysts that Royal Caribbean had seen growth in digital engagement.
“A record share of onboard revenue was booked pre-cruise, with nearly 90% of those purchases being made through our digital channels. And we continue to redefine loyalty in a way that deepens engagement and provides guests with greater flexibility in how they earn points and status.”
An independent analysis published by Klover.ai found that Royal Caribbean’s AI strategy “manifests most visibly in its relentless effort to re-engineer the guest journey. By deploying AI to eliminate historical friction points and deliver hyper-personalized experiences, the company aims to boost guest satisfaction, deepen loyalty, and drive significant ancillary revenue.”
AI ‘on rails’ transfers critical data at HX Expeditions
Versori and HX Expeditions announced a successful digital transformation project that connected the expedition cruise line’s customer relationship management platform with its Seaware booking system.
The AI agent integration facilitated the transfer of critical customer and operational data that would have required hundreds of hours of manual entry.
“This set of integration flows is a testament to what’s possible when teams align around a shared vision,” Oliver Pirozek, program director of digital and IT at HX Expeditions, said in the company announcement. “Vesori’s technical leadership and our commitment to innovation made this a success, overcoming technical and operational challenges along the way.”
Because the complexities of HX’s Seaware booking platform did not allow for an API-enabled data transfer, the cruise line initially faced the prospect of having to hire additional staff to enter all the records manually. Versori developed an AI robotic process automation to properly interpret and enter the data instead.
“Rather than having a person have to sit there and do that—or a team of people as it would be—we can just run this process automation which will grab all those old bookings and migrate them across,” Will Jackson, Versori’s COO, told PhocusWire.
He said the integration allowed “the data to flow seamlessly between those two systems” so that HX would have “absolute continuity” across the two systems without requiring double entry.
The approach, Jackson said, reduced the need for “five or six staff for around six months to manually re-enter all those records.” He explained that Versori’s “agentic platform … natively uses AI at its core to help build out workflows” and that “our agentic model and LLMs and AI massively expedite the understanding of Seaware as a legacy system.”
Ultimately, the way we use AI, it’s never left to do something. It’s never given any accountability.
Will Jackson, Versori
Jackson also emphasized the importance of control and error management to avoid the inherent risk of AI hallucinations.
“If we get an error we’ll retry … but if when we retry a second time if it errors again, we don’t touch that migration again and we do some investigation our side as to why that’s errored,” he said. “So, we’re managing any hallucinations that way.”
He added, “Ultimately, the way we use AI, it’s never left to do something. It’s never given any accountability. It’s us using it to accelerate our delivery for our clients, but we’re using it in a way where it’s on rails to an extent.”
Where AI would help cruisers most
Sefton Monk, CEO of My Kind of Cruise, told PhocusWire that “the post-booking process is where [AI will] really take off,” describing areas such as “maintenance and paying off your cruise and help” as opportunities for automation.
However, Monk sees the strongest opportunities in cruise line operations. “Cleaning up efficiencies is where I do think it’s really going to help,” he said, particularly “the non-customer-facing side.”
He also pointed to the risk of AI hallucinations for customer-side applications, saying “it’s not at the stage yet where we can guarantee that the customer is getting what they’ve asked for.”
On whether cruisers themselves are ready to embrace AI tools, Monk said, “If they’re an avid cruiser and they only cruise, they’re probably not going to be used to some of the AI tools that have been out there for other areas.”
But Monk also sees potential onboard applications for AI, such as an in-cabin AI assistant like Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, providing helpful information that cruise travelers want to know during their trip.
“I would definitely see as that’s the next step for one of the cruise lines to do—to bring that in, [where customers] wake up in the morning and say, you know, ‘Hey, what is the itinerary today? What time do we dock?’ and that sort of stuff I think would really interest cruisers.”
“It would be great if you could ask the cabin AI agent, ‘How do I get to the main dining room?’ or ‘How do I get to this pool?’”
But when it comes to booking cruises and add-ons like shore excursions, Monk believes that human interaction throughout the process will remain essential to ensure people get the correct information and an itinerary that meets their needs. “The biggest problem [that is] going to come up is hallucination and [the AI] telling [customers] incorrect things that are drastically problematic to the whole experience of going on holiday,” Monk warned.
Cruise lines are successfully applying AI, and there are more opportunities for them to develop further applications. The cruise industry’s digital transformation is moving steadily ahead—but to ensure a steady course, human hands will still need to guide the wheel.