Expedia Group is investing in artificial intelligence (AI) in two categories, one of which is not yet delivering conversion, the company said.
During the online travel agency’s second quarter 2026 results, CEO Ariane Gorin split the AI development in products to what is delivering results to the core business and some of the conversational developments that are not.
That second category, she said, the company knows “is helping us better understand travelers and is going to have compounding benefits over time.”
Meanwhile, the company is seeing immediate benefits in using AI for “better recommendations, for better ranking, for personalizing the UX and the content.”
Commenting on brand Expedia, Gorin said AI-powered personalization and recommendations had helped drive "another quarter of record attach rates."
"The team has really been honing in and optimizing those recommendations. In addition, they’ve done a great job really optimizing the UX and the design, figuring out where is it that we put the attach messaging, where is it in the app, where is it in the post-sale communications."
Gorin provided natural language experiences in Vrbo such as natural language search on the home page and its property expert agent as examples of developments that are not driving conversion yet.
“But what we're finding is that you get over 60% more information about traveler intent, and that allows us to deepen the relationships with the traveler. And over time, I believe that that's going to drive sort of deeper conversion. So that's what we're doing in our product. I also believe there's a big growth opportunity in getting access to travelers who are starting outside of our brands in these AI experiences.”
Gorin added that it was early days for the AI experiences but that “the algorithms, the search, UX, all of that is moving really quickly. And so we’re staying close to it.”
On the changing search landscape Gorin combined search engine optimization and answer engine optimization (AEO) and described organic search traffic as “stable to slightly up.”
During the call, she described AEO as still a small channel but one of the fastest growing for the company, adding that agentic has higher purchase consideration.
“I believe we were early in organizing ourselves around it and understanding not only what visibility were we getting in prompts and answers and AI search, but also how do we make sure we're getting the right visibility.”
She added that there are instances where the company can control where the brand shows up, while with others it cannot.
Q2 metrics
In the second quarter, the group reported booked room nights up 6% to 111.5 million year over year. Gross bookings increased 12% to $33.9 billion.
Revenue for the quarter increased 14% to $4.3 billion year over year while net income came in at $878 million compared with $330 million in Q2 2025. Adjusted EBITDA increased 23% to $1.12 billion.
Direct sales and marketing expenses for Q2 increased 10% to $2.12 billion year over year.
“We exceeded the high end of our guidance in the quarter, driven by growth in our consumer brands, sustained B2B momentum and disciplined execution,” Gorin said. “We continued to strengthen our marketplace through more personalized consumer product experiences and expanded supply across our business, while leveraging AI as a force multiplier to innovate faster and operate more efficiently.”
The company increased its full-year guidance off the back of the Q2 results and said it now expects gross bookings of between $129.5 billion and $130.8 billion, representing growth of 8% to 9%. Revenue for the full year is forecast at between $16.05 and $16.22 billion, representing growth of up to 10%.