Booking.com to trial AI Trip Planner in U.S from today

Booking.com has announced its new AI Trip Planner, which will launch in beta to a selection of US travellers in the company’s app on June 28.

Built upon the foundation of Booking.com’s existing machine learning models that recommend destination and accommodation options to millions of travellers on the platform every day.

The AI Trip Planner is also partially powered by large language model (LLM) technology from OpenAI’s ChatGPT API to create a new conversational experience for people to start their trip planning process.

The AI Trip Planner will be able to answer any travel-related queries and the specific questions associated with any stage of the trip planning process such as identifying the best accommodation options, or even helping to pick the right destination.

More personalised travel recommendations
Travellers can easily chat with the pilot AI Trip Planner to describe what they’re looking for in broad or specific terms, ask questions and refine their search in real-time, with new options surfacing in seconds. From looking for inspiration on romantic beach destinations in the Caribbean to a specific list of holiday homes for a family, with air conditioning and a pool, the AI Trip Planner makes recommendations in a quick, conversational way.

Integrated travel planning experience
The AI Trip Planner takes the trip planning process one step further by providing travellers with a visual list of destinations and properties, with pricing information and deep-links to view more details.

Travellers can go between their chat with the AI Trip Planner and the Booking.com app as they consider options for their trip.

Users can simply tap on any accommodation they are interested in, and complete the reservation, as the AI Trip Planner is directly integrated into the accommodation booking experience in the Booking.com app

“Our primary aim at Booking.com has always been to leverage technology to make travel easier,” CEO, Booking.com, Glenn Fogel, said.

“The recent developments with generative AI are accelerating the work we’ve been doing for years with machine learning to enhance and improve every aspect of the customer experience on our platform, whether it’s optimising the right order to display a hotel’s photos to surfacing the most relevant reviews.

“Our new AI Trip Planner is simply the next step in our ongoing journey to explore how we can bring even more value, and hopefully enjoyment, to the entire trip planning process.”

Rob Francis, the CTO at Booking.com echoed his colleagues comments, saying, “Our new AI Trip Planner provides us with some really exciting possibilities to help our customers plan and search for travel options in a very natural, human way.”

“Oftentimes, people are asked to adapt to the confines of technology to do what they want, but with generative AI, we’re able to start having scalable, one-to-one conversations with our customers on their terms, much like how you would begin to talk about planning a trip with your partner or friends.

“It’s just the beginning, but we have lots of runway here to explore in order to innovate and connect the travel experience further on Booking.com, all in a safe, ethical and inclusive way.”

Starting 28 June, the beta AI Trip Planner will become available to a growing percentage of Booking.com Genius members in the United States over the coming weeks.