AI is pushing travel advisors toward their next evolution

Travel advisors have spent decades successfully adapting to technological change.

Now, as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes embedded throughout the travel planning process, the sector is entering another period of evolution. Early signs suggest advisors are embracing that shift. 

According to Phocuswright research conducted with Travel Weekly, 56% of advisors describe themselves as cautiously optimistic about adopting new technology, while 59% say they have already used generative AI tools, up from 41% a year earlier. An updated study, expected later this year, will measure how adoption and attitudes are changing.

Jake Peters, co-founder, CTO and chief product officer of Fora, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2023, said interest in using AI “is spanning every age group and every level of technical comfort in ways I haven’t seen in my almost 40 years of building technology.”

While advisors may have initially viewed AI with a degree of uncertainty, that feeling has largely been replaced with optimism.

“I think, generally speaking, we’re past the freak-out phase,” Mickey McBride, VP of sales at Avoya Travel, told PhocusWire. “From a perception standpoint, I think AI is seen as more of a compliment and not a competitor.”

Rather than replacing travel advisors, AI is being applied to the work travelers never see—research, itinerary building, supplier comparisons, administrative tasks—freeing advisors to spend more time on building relationships and delivering the personalized service travelers value.

Removing the invisible work

The clearest opportunity emerging from AI is increasing advisor capacity.

David Shull, co-founder and CEO of Tern, estimates that 80%-90% of an advisor’s day is spent on administrative tasks.

“It's not actually adding unique value to their client,” he said. “It's not using their expertise.”

That administrative burden limits growth more than demand, Shull argued. He recalled speaking with a former advisor who told him, “I was doing $2 million in annual sales as a travel advisor. I could have easily done $5 [million] or $6 million, I just didn’t have time.”

“If you gave them another 10 hours in the week, they could sell a whole lot more,” he said.

The areas where advisors express the greatest interest in AI closely mirror that opportunity. 

Phocuswright research found advisors are most interested in using generative AI to create emails, marketing materials and website content, followed by generating customized itineraries, curating travel packages and automating routine tasks such as scheduling, booking administration and client communications.

Those are the same tasks companies are racing to simplify.

From tasks to workflows

“The cool thing about AI is that there are infinite workflows,” said Tern's Shull. “We have something like 50 different tools the AI can access now, and advisors have been doing all kinds of creative things with them.”

Tern, which in 2025 raised $13 million in Series A funding to develop products targeting advisor pain points, recently launched agentic AI capabilities. 

Tern's AI technology can review advisors' emails and draft responses, build itineraries, process confirmations and perform a trip audit. Advisors can ask the system to review an itinerary for missing hotel nights, absent confirmation numbers or other inconsistencies that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The company is also experimenting with more contextual forms of assistance. In one example, AI recognized that travelers taking a trip to France had a nut allergy and suggested language they could use to communicate with restaurant staff during their trip.

Shull said that Tern’s short-term roadmap includes enabling AI to interact with advisors’ personal content library, allowing advisors to create customized prompt templates and more robust integration with task management.

Advisors have the ability to approve any critical action the AI suggests before changes are made. 

“We’re always trying to find the balance between usefulness and approval,” said Shull. In the future, advisors will likely set global rules for which types of tasks they are comfortable having the agent handle independently and which tasks they’d like to approve.

Over time, advisors will have even more options for automating workflows.

“The thing I'm excited about is how do you let the AI do work for the advisor without them having to ask,” Shull said.

At Fora, the goal has been to build tools that “let advisors be the best at their jobs,” according to Peters. 

The company focused initially on building AI solutions to clean global distribution system data, reconcile commission payments and convert supplier proposals into itineraries. It is now beta testing Via, its embedded AI agent, with a subset of advisors.

“Via will become the AI operating layer across our entire platform,” said Peters. “It will live inside our existing interfaces alongside an always-on chat assistant, shifting Fora’s portal from a reactive tool to a proactive one.”

In 2025, Fora announced $60 million raised in its Series B and C rounds. The funding was earmarked in part for integrating AI into its technology.

Avoya, which includes Tern among its technology partners, agreed that AI is making advisors more efficient.

“It's helping to ... clear that time that's enabling an advisor to focus on judgment, trust, expertise and actually completing the booking process,” McBride said.

Humans in the loop: The advisor response

Among advisors, AI perspectives and usage levels vary. But early data suggests that embracing the technology could yield concrete advantages.

According to Shull, some advisors are all-in on AI and eager to replace the most tedious parts of their jobs. A lot of advisors “in the middle” are experimenting and figuring out how their role and identity may evolve. Only a small minority is against using it altogether.

Both Fora and Tern reported that itinerary creation, destination research and content creation are among the most popular ways advisors are using AI.

Tern reviewed usage data for 6,900 advisors over the last 90 days and found that the number of advisors using AI each month has nearly tripled in the past year. A typical advisor now uses AI 50 times per month, compared to only 12 a year ago.

Advisors who are using AI are largely open to accepting its recommendations—but many still want to maintain a personal touch.

According to Tern, advisors accept nearly nine in 10 routine suggestions made by AI (e.g., updating trips, adding contacts), but they are less likely to accept email drafts without editing themselves (six in 10).

Data from Fora suggests that its advisors who use AI most frequently are seeing tangible business benefits. 

“Fora Advisors that use AI daily have booked 4.3x more commissionable booking value in the last year, made 3.5x more bookings, served 3.3x more clients and generated 3.5x more repeat clients per advisor than non-users,” said Peters. “Fora Advisors who are using AI daily are also 2.5x more likely to hit $100k in bookings in their first year.”

Those gains are likely due in part to improved productivity. In some cases, AI is also helping advisors deliver more reliable, more personalized service.

Tern shared the story of an advisor who used AI for a pre-departure trip review on a luxury trip to Italy. The technology flagged an unpaid hotel reservation that would have resulted in cancellation prior to the travelers’ arrival. “Tern’s AI review didn’t just catch a small thing, it literally saved a trip,” the advisor reported.

The next evolution

Looking ahead, a consensus view emerged: The travel agency ecosystem is poised to thrive in the age of AI.

“Travel advisors have endured every tech revolution that was going to kill them,” Shull said. “Humans are really good at selling travel.”

Avoya’s McBride believes the advisors who thrive will be those who successfully blend technology with the interpersonal skills that have always defined the profession.

“The future of the advisor ... is predicated on both those who are high tech and high touch," he said. Combining advisors’ authenticity and personal touch with AI tools is “the winning formula.”

Shull said he believes AI will enable advisors to increase community engagement and provide better, more personalized service on a larger scale.

“My goal is that we take what’s a $127 billion industry today, and I think if you make advisors two-to-three times more efficient, that easily becomes a $300 billion industry,” he said.

The role of host agencies is also expected to evolve.

“Which host agency you choose will matter more, not less,” Peters said.

He expects AI to further differentiate hosts that invest in integrated technology, proprietary data and advisor communities rather than stitching together disconnected third-party tools.

Shull also sees host agencies benefiting from automation. By reducing time spent on administrative work, he believes hosts will be able to devote more resources to advisor education, supplier relationships, compliance and community support.

The technology is already helping advisors reclaim time once spent drafting emails, researching suppliers, reconciling commissions and managing itineraries. The next phase will likely go further, with AI proactively monitoring trips, surfacing opportunities and handling increasingly complex workflows.

“I think it’s gonna be the best thing that’s ever happened to the travel advisor,” Shull said.