Adriana Lee

Travel brands have serious competition guiding AI models to the info that consumers ask for.

It's not the hotel brands, airlines, or even the OTAs. It's NerdWallet.

New emailed price-drop alerts for hotels give travelers another reason to circle back to Google, creating another moment Google sits between the traveler and the booking.

AI is shaking up modern hotel distribution at the infrastructure level — and one of the latest signs comes from SiteMinder, which is now linking it to live data from its vast hotel inventory.

Expedia’s new report says travelers don’t trust AI to book, preferring to transact with travel brands. At the same time, the OTA is expanding across AI platforms wherever trip decisions get made.  

Booking.com disclosed a data breach affecting reservation details, but with few specifics, travelers are left to gauge the risks themselves.

You can learn a lot about a company's AI ambitions by looking through their job listings.

Travel companies aren’t facing a new AI gatekeeper — they’re facing several. Now the infrastructure is being built across Amazon, Meta, and Google, and each works differently. 

Meta is building AI that could know travelers' social history and see their surroundings in real time. Google isn't there yet.

Food ordering is Amazon's dress rehearsal for voice-driven travel planning and booking — a move that could put Alexa between travelers and travel suppliers.