It's hard to believe that it's only been a year since travelers started dabbling in itineraries created by ChatGPT. This year will bring even more experimentation and innovation. “ai is like a teenage intern,” said Chad Burt, co-owner of the travel advisor network. External agents“better, smarter, faster than you, but you must lead them.”
The increasing use of ai could influence how we book online, what happens when flights are canceled or delayed, and even how much we pay for tickets.
“In 2024, we will see a new generation of intelligent travel agents built on chatbots,” he said. Oren Etzioni, professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Washington. That means travelers will start interacting with sites like Airbnb, Expedia and Priceline by typing questions in addition to checking boxes to find accommodations, restaurants and amenities like pools.
ai will also drive what happens behind the scenes at airlines and airports, said Gilbert Ott, director of partnerships at point me out, which helps travelers find flights to purchase with rewards points. For example, you could improve automatic rebooking on new flights when customers miss connections or there are weather issues. tracks. At United Airlines, for example, smarter software can offer rebooking options and issue food and lodging vouchers when a flight is canceled, rather than simply rebooking a flight.
On the ground, ai software will be able to inform more decisions made by humans, such as how to more efficiently reposition baggage carts and staff in response to tight connections or flight delays.
Finally, ai systems trained on larger, more up-to-date data sets will allow airlines' dynamic ticket pricing algorithms to better use data like weather predictions and customer searches to charge as much as they can while still filling the airplanes. At the same time, companies such as the online travel agency Hopperwhich says it uses 70 trillion data points in its price prediction model, continues to work the problem from the other side, in a kind of ai-driven arms race between airlines and customers.
