Sabre has restructured its senior team as it looks to take full advantage of artificial intelligence (AI).
Reporting fourth quarter and full-year results, the company said it is in the process of transitioning from a global distribution system-focused company to an AI-native company.
During the company’s earnings call, president and CEO Kurt Ekert said Sabre does not believe AI agents will disintermediate its marketplace, despite industry speculation.
“We strongly disagree. AI needs what Sabre has already built—fast, constantly evolving data, integrated content and complex logic, purpose built to solve travel’s uniquely challenging workflows. We provide the foundational transaction layer AI uses to shop price, book and service travel. We expect this shift makes us more essential, not less,” he said.
Ekert also said that Sabre could see revenue growth from AI initiatives in the future through the provision of conversational commerce solutions to airlines.
Speaking to PhocusWire he said a bigger opportunity lies in agentic commerce emerging as a significant new channel for travel and the company becoming a layer between travel suppliers and AI platforms.
"I think it's Sabre extending and being in the backbone for these new channels, for this new channel. I think that is the fundamental growth opportunity. How big is it? It's big. I don't know the size. I don't know the rate at which it's going to develop. But I think it's gonna be a very meaningful part of our future," Ekert said.
He also touched on the potential commercial models going forward, stressing the value that the current distribution model provides.
"I think our model in terms of what we charge overall is very defendable. There's potential margin accretion opportunity for us, but it will really depend on what the model evolves to, what the agentic players want and require, and then two, how our supplier customers, how they see this value chain as well."
As a result of the reshuffle, Garry Wiseman has been promoted to president of product and engineering, including responsibility for innovation and agentic AI. Wiseman was formerly EVP and chief product and technology officer. Shawn Williams has been appointed COO and will lead revenue and commercial operations. He was previously EVP and chief administration officer. Andy Finkelstein, previously SVP of global agency sales and delivery, becomes chief commercial officer of travel marketplace.
Roshan Mendis, the current CCO, will become a senior adviser before leaving the business in May.
In tandem with the reshuffle, Sabre has embarked on a inflation offset program that Ekert said would result in development work taking place in different geographies and a reduction in workforce. The company also plans to ramp up its engineering team.
Discussing the opportunity for AI, Wiseman described Sabre's 50 petabytes of travel data and content as "demand signals," which are not available publicly.
"However, we enable pure play AI companies to participate in a complex space with a simple connection to these insights," he said. "We believe we are also critical in an AI first world because of our proprietary and constantly evolving logic. In short, we believe we have solved for almost every single edge case that has ever existed in travel anywhere in the world. This logic is proprietary and cannot be scraped from the web or reverse engineered. AI engines cannot independently obtain and orchestrate this logic. While chatbots can generate itineraries, they can't book or service them reliably at scale."
Sabre reported Q4 earnings of $667 million compared to $645 million for the same period in 2024. Distribution revenue increased 5% to $527 million attributed to an increase in distribution bookings and favorable travel supplier mix.
IT Solutions revenue declined by 4% to $140 million primarily due to revenue recorded in the prior year that did not reoccur.
Normalized adjusted EBITDA in Q4 was $119 million, an improvement from $108 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.
"Sabre ended the year with strong momentum and we believe is well-positioned for accelerating performance ahead. Despite a challenging 2025, we strengthened our balance sheet and generated full-year positive Pro Forma Free Cash Flow,” Ekert said.
"With an improving travel industry backdrop in early 2026 and continued growth from our SabreMosaic Marketplace, we expect a meaningful acceleration in year-on-year volume and revenue growth. Our commitment to innovation positions us well to drive consistent long-term growth and value creation, and we believe our leadership position in agentic AI could drive additional revenue growth in the future.”
Full-year revenue totaled $2.8 billion compared to $2.7 billion in 2024, while distribution revenue increased 2% to $2.2 billion. IT Solutions revenue decreased 3% to $554 million attributed to the impact of carriers leaving Sabre prior to 2024.