Kayak and Expedia are racing to build AI travel agents which turn social posts into itinerary

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When AI agents and assistants were first discussed, the most common use case was travel. Could someone watch a video on the Maldives, and then instruct their AI agent to find flights and hotels and book them seamlessly?

As the travel industry embraces agentic AI, we’re getting closer to a future like this. Kayak Expediaand Booking.com are two of the biggest companies in travel booking. VB Transformsays that agents can help travel companies make travel inspiration a real thing.

Matthias Keller is the chief product officer of Kayak. He said that the company has been testing this idea for several years, taking advantage of Amazon’s Alexa. Kayak is no longer available on Alexa but that hasn’t prevented the company from providing different search options for customers.

Keller said at VB Transform: “We’re striving to achieve this vision of a 24/7 travel agent powered by AI, which is always available.” “In April, our new testbed for booking agentic travel called One is web search, but we also offer tools specifically for flights or hotels.”

Keller said Kayak “is working towards our vision of having this fully personalized experience that does all the heavy lifting for you when you plan travel.” We offer web search but also tools for flights and hotels.”

Keller stated that Kayak “is working towards our vision to have this fully personalized experience that does all the hard work for you when planning travel.”

Thumu stated that more and more customers will expect a seamless experience from the search to the completion of transactions. “But, the most important thing and the shift that I see happening is asking for a balance between the control of the traveler and the control we grant to the agent.” Expedia’s AI project decided to leverage the growing influence of Instagram travel influencers.

Thumu said Expedia’s Expedia’s Trip Matching featurelaunched in June and allows customers to send any public Instagram Reel related to travel to the platform. The platform will then create an itinerary using that information.

Thumu stated that Expedia is able to build this type AI product due to its extensive database accumulated over the past 30 years. Both Thumu, and Keller, stressed the importance of data when building out these personalized experiences. This can be a challenging task.

According to Keller, personalization can extend beyond planning a vacation based on inspiration and previous preferences. Their platforms and AI agents will eventually start recommending activities based on weather conditions in the location you plan to visit during your stay.

AI simplifies the complexity

Companies like Kayak and Expedia have found AI useful for “snackers”or individuals who search for hotels or flights without any intention of making a booking. These are people who want to know the price of a hotel or a flight.

AI can help snackers find answers and may even encourage to go on a trip because they can be presented with a lot of the tediousness in finding accommodation, transportation, and activities right on the front end of Expedia or Kayak.

When I pitch Kayak AI [is] to someone, I find it interesting. I can say we can plan this complex trip without running all the searches,” Keller said. “Every hotel booking website can tell you a hotel has pool, but it takes a lot of digging to find an infinity swimming pool.” ChatGPT is great at answering this type of question, so we need to adapt and deliver.