Metasearch engine Kayak is in the midst of an AI transformation overseen by new CEO Peer Bueller, who was promoted in February after his predecessor, company co-founder Steve Hafner, stepped aside. [Travel Weekly] airlines editor Robert Silk spoke with Bueller and chief product officer Matthias Keller about what's in store for the travel tech brand.
Kayak.AI launched last year in a trial form. Now you've made it easy to connect to your Ask AI feature of the main Kayak site. What portion of your users are using the new platform?
Keller: It is still single-digit percentage. But what really makes us optimistic about it is that we see that the web as a whole is moving towards that model. And we see time over time how more users engage with it because they just see it in all these other places.
What shifts have you seen from AI searches and search results compared to standard searches?
Bueller: There's a fun statistic that probably summarizes it quite nicely. For years with Kayak or OTAs, you wouldn't be able to really start engaging with travel search unless you had an airport, destination and dates. What we see right now in over 100,000 conversations that people are having with Kayak AI every month is that they are 10 times more likely than the average user to start their search without a specific destination, without a specific date. They say something like, "I want to get out of this weather. Where should I go?" That type of question has always been on people's minds, but classic travel tools just couldn't really handle those people.
What are the shortfalls in your technology? Are there still things that the AI agent is not doing as well as you'd like?
Bueller: We all know AI nowadays, 2026, is so much better than it was, but it's also still full of hallucinations.
Can they be eliminated or 95% eliminated?
Bueller: As a user of AI, you'll have seen hallucinations most of the time are pretty odd. It's not problems that can't be prevented. So I think we should be getting to a place in which quality is way better.
How far have you progressed with creating agentic capabilities?
Keller: We definitely see that there is a lot of demand in thinking about agentic booking in spaces where travel is a bit more constrained, specifically corporate travel. These people know exactly what they want to book, and it's really just like one-click checkout and done. In the leisure space, there's still so much at stake. People are still afraid to book a flight on a phone, so it's not really clear when they will be ready to book fully agentic.
How are you positioned compared to travel search startups that began from scratch with conversational AI? Is your legacy technology a challenge?
Bueller: I'd love to think we're really well positioned. I think travel search, travel comparison, price comparison in a world like ours, where pricing becomes more chaotic and unpredictable, is a real art. In this world where inventory at some point might be a commodity, the user experience is going to be the differentiator. And I think price comparison is not done really well in long text form. You're going to have to have a matrix-type visual to make clear what the difference is between one airline's economy premium, the other one's economy plus and the other one's economy extra. Kayak has figured that all out. By and large, we're really good at understanding how people want to view that, and I think that is a pretty good unique selling point for us that is not something anybody can replicate out of nowhere just because they have the content, as well.
This story originally appeared in Travel Weekly.