AI mode by Google to help with travel bookings

Google is seriously upping its travel game, improving its search engine towards acting like a comprehensive travel assistant. They are proactively building an AI tool, an agent-based mind you, that can handle these difficult travel bookings on its own. Right now, it’s struggling with restaurants and local services, but flights and hotels are definitely on the horizon.

In a recent blog post, Google revealed that “Agent Restaurant Bookings” is rolling out across the US, thanks to their new “AI Mode” – which, by the way, doesn’t require you to be part of Google Labs. This also applies to event tickets and, say, beauty treatments. Julie Farago, Google’s vice president of engineering, confirmed this “The ability to complete hotel and flight bookings entirely within an AI interface” is the next step.

Just picture yourself describing what you want – dates, budget, things you want – and the AI ​​then compares options from different providers, photos, reviews, timetables, and what it will cost you. After all, it finalizes the booking with the partner you choose. This feature will rely heavily on integrating with major players in the travel scene.

Google has already partnered with some big names, including:

• Booking.com
• Expedia Group
• Choice Hotels International
• IHG Hotels and Resorts
• Marriott International
• Wyndham Hotels and Resorts

The exact payment part is still a bit of a mystery (will Google handle the payments, be the middleman, or just point you in the right direction in the end?), but the goal is clear: turn a simple chat into a done-and-dusted booking with as little fuss as possible.

An AI wide-ranging arms race

The move puts Google firmly in competition with OpenAI. Considering their relatively recent arrival, OpenAI has moved surprisingly fast on the journey, especially when you consider Google’s dominance of search over the past few decades.

OpenAI ChatGPT has evolved from a simple chatbot into its platform through custom “GPTs” and, more importantly, “Third Party Actions”, which are essentially plugins that allow external services to do things within the chat. Expedia and Booking.com were among the first partners to bring it to life.

And ChatGPT instantly shows current hotel options with photos, prices and details from Expedia. Clicking on an option takes you to Expedia to finalize the booking, although OpenAI has indicated that a full conversation transfer is planned.

Booking.com has a similar deal, meaning two of the biggest online travel agencies in the world are Google and OpenAI — often at the same time.

Same partners, different methods

Interestingly, Expedia and Booking.com are spreading their chips around. Instead of choosing a side, they firmly ally with the AI ​​giants. From the perspective of the travel industry, distribution is everything, and it doesn’t want to risk being absent from the conversational interface that most people use first when planning a vacation.

Google’s advantage is that it is everywhere (billions of searches per day) and can easily provide rich, visual comparison tables in search results. OpenAI’s strength lies in its natural back-and-forth conversation, and the rapid adoption of ChatGPT, which has made many people “just ask AI” a habit.

So, what’s the next step?

Both companies have just started:

Neither actually processes payments entirely within the AI ​​(you are sent to checkout). Cancellation items, loyalty points, and those complex multi-stop itineraries are still hard for automated agents to handle.

Concerns about accuracy and product creation are still valid when real money is involved.

However, the trend is irreversible. Perhaps sometime in the next 12-18 months, significant travel bookings will be done through conversational AI. The way people shop online may change. Instead of going to websites or using apps, they might just chat with AI status assistants through whatever platform they already use.

When it comes to travel, the best system will probably be the one that is the fastest, most reliable and cheapest, while also being the easiest to use. Right now, Google and OpenAI seem to be pushing each other really hard, and they’re taking the entire travel industry along for the ride.