With the generative andn decelerationAI agents run like The next great revolution of the sector. Unlike a chatbot to which we ask something and respond, an agent is able to carry out complex tasks autonomously. The first reaction was to see them as A threat to many jobs. Expectations have fallen because technology is still quite greenbut there is a sector in which the threat seems very real and is already preparing for what can come.
The threat. Travel planning is one of the fields in which an AI agent can be very practical. In fact, he was part of the demonstration of Chatgpt agentin which they asked him to organize assistance to a wedding and the agent organized the entire plan, including looking for flights and hotels. If an agent does everything for us, this could leave flight seekers and hotels out of play that act as intermediaries and take a commission for it.
If you can’t with the enemy … They tell it in Financial Times. Online travel platforms are beginning to implement functions with AI in their portals. This is the case of Airbnb, which already implemented an AI agent in its customer service and plans to expand it to more areas of its app to make the most automatic experience. Booking signed an agreement with OpenAI to automate services and launch its own travel planner adjusted based on platform data. Expedia also integrated Openai technology and is working on an agent.
Hotels and airlines. Unlike online agencies, both the hotel sector and the airlines see with good eyes the arrival of AI agents. If customers hire them directly with them, they would save the Commissions that in the case of the hotel sector is around 20%. Of course, nothing guarantees that these alleged agents do not implement other types of commission system for each hired trip. For Hotrec, the European hotel association, AI agents have potential, but can end up replicating the platform model and generating a new dependency cycle.
A lot of at stake. We talk about a business that, according to Financial Times, moves 1.6 billion dollars a year worldwide. The leader travel agency is Booking, which In 2024 he billed 24,000 million dollarsfollowed by Expedia with 10,000 million dollars. The irruption of agents in business can threaten their domain by offering more options to consumers.
Nervous. Last year, researchers from the University of Ohio They tested the capabilities of several AI models When planning trips and only achieved a 0.6%success rate. Although agricultural AI has improved, we have recently seen that It still has a long way to go. However, nervousness among those responsible for these platforms is evident. Jochen Koedijk, Expenditure Marketing Director, believes that online agencies have an advantage because they have many data on user behavior. “We know what it sells and what is not. That is the proposal of really important value,” he says. Glenn Fogel, Booking CEO, it’s clearer: “I’m not so dumb as it doesn’t worry me.”
Image | Web Summit, via Flickr
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