Google’s New ‘AI Mode’ for Search: The Impact on Trip Planning
Photo Credit: Google's new AI Mode is accessible as a tab in Search or in the search bar of the Google app. Google/YouTube.
Skift Take
This was Google's biggest group of AI announcements yet. With all the of the travel-related demos, the industry is clearly top-of-mind during development.
Google announced several AI enhancements during its annual I/O developer conference Tuesday, with travel-related demos for many of them.
It’s the biggest travel-related AI update since last year’s conference, where Google announced a trip planner for the Gemini chatbot, which the company later told Skift it was no longer pursuing.
The latest Search upgrades were among a slew of product announcements on Tuesday that included:
Smart glasses, with plans for live voice translation and a connection to Maps for real-time navigation. AI-generated replies in Gmail to create and share an itinerary, which take into account information from emails and other apps. Near real-time voice translation in Google Meet, which the company said could be useful when making travel bookings in other countries. A new Gemini chatbot extension for Chrome that allows users to reference a webpage during prompts, such as asking the AI to compare multiple hote
