Artificial intelligence (AI) remains a buzzword among travel companies, with Trivago reporting a staggering increase in internal AI spend.
In the first seven months of 2026, the metasearch engine said it spent more than five times as much on AI tooling and tokens for its teams as it did in all of 2025.
Trivago did not disclose total spend amount. PhocusWire has reached out to Trivago for additional information.
Internal AI use is also up among its roughly 600 employees, Johannes Thomas, Trivago CEO and managing director, said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call with analysts.
According to an internal survey, approximately 93% use AI daily, up from 63% from the same time last year, and 86% said the tech “makes a real, measurable difference in their output.”
“Saving time and becoming more efficient is great, but we believe the real leverage lies elsewhere. Each of us is becoming dramatically more capable, making better decisions, building products and scaling reliable systems faster,” Thomas said in his prepared remarks.
“Our ambition is to become an AI-native company, where agentic systems take on more of the execution and our people focus on direction, judgment and craft.”
Google antitrust updates
In May, Trivago filed an antitrust suit against Google, alleging that the search giant “systematically” favored its own hotel metasearch over competitors like Trivago.
At the time, Thomas said Trivago was seeking full compensation for its claim, spanning from January 2014 through December 2025. The suit was based on Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and German competition law.
During Wednesday's earnings call, Thomas said Trivago has not seen Google implementing changes in general search results. Notably, the European Commission fined Google €890 million last month for not complying with the Digital Markets Act.
“Overall, we have been quite vocal about this case, and this validates it,” Thomas said.
“We have seen Google testing new versions that appear to be compliant, so we will see how this goes,” he said, noting that it's difficult to predict tailwinds related to search changes.
“I think it's a structural tailwind. When I say ‘structural,’ I think strategic long term. They are not self-preferencing their own product anymore. We have a more fair playing field, where we can compete on eye level. That’s good for us because we believe we have a better product for consumers.”
Q2 2026 financial results
Trivago reported total year-over-year revenue growth of 21% to €168.4 million in Q2 2026 and a 3% increase in return on advertising spend (ROAS) to 121.8%, up from 119% in Q2 2025.
Adjusted EBITDA was €1.1 million, up from a €5 million loss in Q2 2025, also marking the first positive result in a second quarter since 2023, Thomas said. Net loss was €5.2 million, an improvement from €6.5 million in Q2 2025.
Referral revenue, coming from the core metasearch marketplace, was up 9% to €151.4 million.
Advertising spend was up 11% to €128.7 million. Regarding the uptick in this metric, the company noted it increased “at a more moderate pace compared to prior year quarters.”
“We are continuing to observe compounding brand effects from significantly elevated brand investments in prior quarters, particularly in our Americas segment, which contributed to the global ROAS improvement of 2.8 ppts to 121.8%, compared to the same prior year period,” Trivago said.
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