What products need development, according to Expedia Group

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to rapidly advance, travel incumbents such as  Expedia Group have put the pedal to the metal with the creation of new tools and features.

The company has dropped plenty of AI tools, including its Expedia Trip Matching feature that launched this spring and the now-defunct AI assistant, Romie, among others.

But what’s missing from the product suite? Shilpa Ranganathan, the recently appointed chief product officer of Expedia Group, weighed in on what is needed during an onstage interview titled “Designing the Future of Travel” at Phocuswright Europe in Barcelona.

Ranganathan believes the future will include a “trusted companion” type of AI agent that will change the traveler’s booking journey.

There is a need to be able to create what she called a “one touch experience” for customers, avoiding the hassle of taking hours to put a trip together.

Ranganathan also said trip experience is an area she’s interested in improving right now.

“We do a good job getting you on that flight, getting you to the hotel, getting you the car, but while you're on your trip, if the flight gets delayed, who tells the hotel? Who tells the car rental place that they need to keep your keys on the counter?” she said.

Closing that gap, Ranganathan said, could provide more value to travelers, as could agent communication.

“The last thing is agent-to-agent communication. We've already done that by getting our servicing agent talking to our discovery and shopping agent, but we have a potential to integrate with agents around the world,” she said. “So if you have a trip planned to Portugal, imagine another company with an agent that orchestrates personalized tours at the moment, how do you get your agents to talk to one another?”

During the conversation, Ranganathan also dove further into Expedia Group’s AI efforts, distribution strategy and more.

Watch the full discussion moderated by Pete Comeau, managing director of Phocuswright, below: