Rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is already changing the travel industry and how companies operate both externally and internally.
For the past several weeks, PhocusWire has been checking in with executives about where AI is making the biggest difference in their businesses. Up next is Kara Franker, president and CEO of Visit Florida Keys & Key West.
Last October, the destination marketing organization (DMO) launched its AI-powered destination website featuring a multilingual chatbot, the "Conch-cierge." And according to Franker, there's broader potential with agentic for destinations like the Florida Keys, which will reshape the role of the DMO in the future.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for style, clarity and length.
What's the biggest impact AI has had on your organization so far?
When I arrived at Visit Florida Keys in 2024, we had to restructure and rebuild the DMO from the ground up. That gave us an unusual opportunity to build AI into how the new organization works rather than layering it onto legacy processes.
One of my favorite examples: I interviewed every person on our team about their work, then paired those conversations with their job descriptions and used AI to analyze how each role could be better supported. We shared what it found with the team. It surfaced opportunities we would not have seen by looking at an org chart alone. We now use AI across research, strategy and operations.
The biggest impact has been capacity. I'm less interested in using AI to replace someone's work than in helping talented people see things, solve problems and do work they couldn't have done before.
Trivago recently said it increased its investment in internal AI tools more than fivefold in the first seven months of 2026. How does your AI investment compare?
Our scale is obviously very different from Trivago's, so I wouldn't compare our investment dollar for dollar. We've invested heavily in learning. I earned an executive certificate in AI and business strategy from MIT Sloan, and we've intentionally learned from people pushing this work forward in tourism, including Greg Oates at 2050 City, Marina Petrova at Intentful and Janette Roush at Brand USA.
I also learn constantly from DMO leaders who are experimenting in this space, including my friends Tony Cordo in Greensboro and Stuart Butler in Myrtle Beach. That's important because no one has this completely figured out yet.
We're giving our team access to leading platforms and encouraging experimentation, while being cautious about large investments in technology that could quickly become obsolete. Tools will change. I'd rather invest in people who are curious enough to keep learning and who know how to question, direct and evaluate AI.
How do you see AI evolving?
We're moving from AI as a tool to AI as an intermediary. That's the shift I'm watching most closely. Travelers are already getting answers without visiting the websites where that information originated, and AI agents will accelerate that behavior.
A future visitor may not Google "best sunset sail in Key West," compare 10 websites and make a decision. They may simply ask an AI assistant to find the right boat and plan the evening. That changes the job of a DMO. Search visibility alone is no longer enough, and neither is a beautiful campaign if the systems answering travelers' questions never see it. I think the next competitive battleground for destinations will be not just who earns the traveler's attention, but who earns the algorithm's trust.
What role do you see agentic AI playing in the DMO space?
Everyone has a chatbot these days. Ours is called Conch-cierge, and we wanted it to feel like the Florida Keys, not a generic piece of technology. A traveler planning a trip to Key West can use it to uncover local insights, hidden gems and ways to experience the destination, in more than 45 languages. But the more interesting question is what comes after chat.
Imagine an agent that continuously monitors occupancy, booking pace, web behavior, air service, weather and campaign performance, recognizes a meaningful change and recommends, or eventually executes, a response. On the traveler side, agents could move beyond itinerary building to actually coordinating a trip. That creates an important role for DMOs as the trusted source of structured, authoritative destination intelligence those agents rely on.
How has AI changed your recruitment process?
AI has made me rethink what we evaluate in recruitment. In a recent search for a CMO, once I narrowed the field to about 20 candidates, I invited each person to submit a video answering two questions. It was immediately apparent who was reading a polished answer from a screen and who could confidently explain their thinking in a relatable, authentic way. hat's increasingly important when AI can produce an excellent cover letter, résumé or written assignment in seconds.
I'm less interested in whether someone can produce polished content and more interested in how they think, communicate and exercise judgment. I don't think the answer is banning AI from recruitment. The workplace candidates are entering will use it. I want to know whether someone can use AI as a tool while still bringing the curiosity, judgment and human connection that technology can't replicate.
What other technological innovations are you exploring beyond AI?
AI gets most of the attention, but some of our most important technology work is the infrastructure underneath it. With MMGY Global, we rebuilt VisitFloridaKeys.com around structured destination data.
More than 2,000 Keys tourism businesses now have AI-optimized listings, free of charge, helping ensure that AI platforms can accurately describe and surface the businesses that make up our destination.
Consider a fishing guide whose business has traditionally depended on Google search. As travelers shift from search engines to AI assistants, being absent from trusted destination data could make that captain effectively invisible. That's why I'm interested in structured data, connected analytics and better destination intelligence. The future isn't only about adopting AI tools. It's about making sure the technology has authoritative information to work with.
Stay tuned for additional interviews with chief AI officers, e-commerce execs and CTOs as part of PhocusWire's ongoing AI Transformation in Travel series. Catch up on previous conversations with Ante Dagelić of Travelier, Velit Dundar of Radisson, Javier Cabrerizo of HBX Group, Piero Sierra of Skyscanner, and Andrew Jordan of Travelport.