Travel metasearch is evolving from simple price comparison
to something much more ambitious: helping travelers figure out where to go,
when to travel and which options best meet their needs.
Platforms such as Skyscanner sit at the crossroads of travelers’ needs and
partners’ commercial goals, and the need to address both can shape product
roadmaps, monetization choices and artificial intelligence (AI) investments.
In this conversation in the PhocusWire studio at The Phocuswright
Conference in San Diego, Skyscanner CEO Bryan Batista explained why the company
sometimes walks away from short-term revenue if it doesn’t feel right for
travelers and how that stance influences everything from ranking logic and
transparency to expanding into rail, packages and multimodal journeys.
The discussion also explored how the company is embedding AI across the business, from enabling staff to building natural
language search and new “explore” tools. Batista further explained why he believes companies such as OpenAI are not a threat but rather a valuable partner that can help Skyscanner offer metasearch “on
steroids.”
Watch the full
discussion below.
From our partners at The Phocuswright Conference 2025: Skyscanner