The ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the travel industry is not up for debate. The discussion has moved on to what will radically change, how quickly and industry and consumer readiness.
Agents acting autonomously to book travel may be some time away, according to travel executives.
During a panel at ITB Berlin with executives from Booking.com, Google, Sabre and Skyscanner, James Byers, group product manager of Google, stressed how different retail and travel are.
“The world of retail and the world of travel have very different dynamics in how users go through the journey, how they consider these big purchases, in how they transact and who they transact with.”
He added that change might be small to begin with, and agents acting autonomously for “high consideration, high trust, highly emotional purchases” is probably a discussion to be had a year from now.
In January, the search giant introduced its Universal Commerce Protocol, a standard for AI agents and systems to interact and complete a transaction, and it is exploring travel use cases.
AI was discussed in the context of travel technology readiness, and Byers said that "empathy" is needed in the ecosystem because although technology giants are developing various standards, travel industry budgets are tight.
"There's only so much time and energy and and capacity within the travel ecosystem to go and integrate with protocol XYZ. So we will do our best to reuse the parts that work really really well and build a foundation that steps us from the world of yesterday to the world of tomorrow and and take some of those big building blocks that we already have and build on top of them," he said.
The executives agreed that the industry is experiencing a structural shift, but other hurdles exist, including consumer trust.
James Waters, chief business officer of Booking.com, stressed the need to fill the trust gap if the industry is to take full advantage of AI.
“Trust is the thing that will dictate how successful we ultimately are. If you look today, give or take 90% of people will say they looking forward to using gen AI, they plan to use it for travel. If you ask how confident they are to allow it to make decisions, that percentage falls into the single digits.”
He added that the trust will not be just about the AI layer but also in the quality of information, service and elements such as payment security.
The panel moved on to what it means to become “AI native.” Garry Wiseman, Sabre’s president of product and engineering, discussed the company's goal to apply AI “holistically” across the entire product lifecycle. Panelists also highlighted the complexity of the travel industry and areas where AI alone may not provide the answer, with Skyscanner’s chief AI officer Piero Sierra citing complex airline pricing as an example.
See below for the full discussion moderated by Phocuswright analyst and travel industry consultant Dirk Rogl.
The Industry View: How travel will become AI native