Expedia Finds Travelers Trust AI for Planning, Not Booking
Expedia’s latest report shows travelers are embracing AI for trip planning but remain reluctant to let it handle bookings. Trust still lies with established travel brands.
Expedia’s latest report shows travelers are embracing AI for trip planning but remain reluctant to let it handle bookings. Trust still lies with established travel brands.
Amadeus has acquired AI-powered corporate booking platform SkyLink to strengthen its conversational automation capabilities in business travel. The move reflects intensifying competition among travel technology providers.
Expedia is using generative AI and conversational agents to enhance trip planning, streamline operations, and maintain its competitive edge as travel discovery shifts to AI-native tools.
AI coverage of the travel and hospitality sector, tracking deployments, deals, and policy shaping personalization, pricing, and operations across airlines, hotels, and booking platforms.
Google introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard for agentic commerce, enabling AI-driven shopping, checkout, and branded agent interactions across retailers and platforms.
Lenovo introduced Qira, a system-level AI spanning PCs, tablets, smartphones, and wearables. The assistant offers context-aware, cross-device intelligence for writing, collaboration, and workflow management.
Meta Platforms has agreed to acquire Singapore-based AI startup Manus for about $2 billion, gaining a rare revenue-generating AI agent platform. The deal strengthens Meta’s AI strategy as investor scrutiny grows around heavy infrastructure spending.
Amazon is adding four new integrations to its AI-powered Alexa+ assistant, enabling users to book hotels, schedule services, and access lifestyle apps. The update extends the assistant’s capabilities across multiple sectors starting in 2026.
OpenAI and Perplexity introduced AI shopping tools this week, helping users find products through chat-based queries. Experts say startups with niche datasets may still outperform general-purpose chatbots.
Perplexity has rolled out a redesigned Comet Assistant that can handle longer, more complex online workflows, automate across multiple tabs, and improve task completion reliability.
Neobank Revolut has acquired Berlin-based AI travel agent start-up Swifty, integrating its conversational booking technology into Revolut’s loyalty and lifestyle platform for over 65 million users.
OpenAI introduces ChatGPT Pulse, a proactive feature delivering daily updates and suggestions directly in the app, positioning it as a potential challenger to social media feeds.