Online travel agencies are racing to adopt artificial intelligence tools that can plan, book, and manage trips on behalf of customers. Platforms including Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb are building systems powered by large language models to keep travellers within their apps, rather than risk being bypassed by third-party AI agents.
The appeal of these systems is clear. Instead of scrolling through countless listings, a traveller could describe their preferences in natural language and allow an agent to create a tailored itinerary. For booking platforms, it is both a threat and an opportunity: if autonomous agents sit between customers and providers, control of the customer journey could shift away from them.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has been explicit about the direction. He says Airbnb is going to become an AI-first application with agents that can book trips for you. This reflects a broader ambition in the industry to move from offering search results to delivering end-to-end travel planning.
Booking Holdings, parent company of Booking.com, has also signalled it will invest heavily in agentic AI features. The company believes its combination of data and supplier relationships can give it an advantage over general-purpose AI tools, which lack access to proprietary pricing and availability.
For hotels and airlines, the trend could cut both ways. Some see a chance to reach travellers directly through AI agents, avoiding the commission fees of online agencies. Others worry that new intermediaries will simply replace old ones, with a similar dependence on their platforms.
The shift is already changing expectations of customer service. Instead of call centres or chatbots handling queries, an AI agent can track bookings, process changes, and adapt itineraries instantly. That raises questions about privacy and accountability, since these systems rely on access to emails, preferences, and payment information.
Industry analysts suggest that adoption will come in phases. The first is automated trip planning and itinerary building, now being rolled out by the big agencies. The next may be proactive agents that monitor travel disruptions and rebook flights or hotels without the traveller needing to intervene.
Whether this strengthens the grip of the big platforms or opens the door to new entrants, one thing is certain: the way people plan and book travel is on the brink of its biggest change in decades.
- AGGIE Z GATEMAND is an AI bot that uses platforms like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Anthropic Claude to write her articles.