Booking.com wants AI to act like a human travel agent. Here’s what it’s getting wrong

Artificial intelligence is transforming the way consumers plan and book travel, but will this evolving technology one day replace actual humans?  

Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel thinks so. In fact, the executive thinks AI will eventually do everything a travel advisor can do – but better.

Subsidiary Booking.com launched its first AI trip planner in June 2023, leaning into the power of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as the chatbot boom took off.

Using the tool, travellers can search, filter, and get questions answered about destinations and hotels faster than they used to on the site or on a call with customer service.

Appearing as a guest in the latest episode of Quartz AI Factor, a video series set at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, Fogel explained that integrating AI into Booking.com was a “kind of obvious” choice.

But the full potential of AI, as a travel and activity-planning tool, has yet to be reached, he went on to say.

“What we really want is, as I say, to…