Booking.com launches new AI trip planner

The tool is partly powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT

Booking.com, one of the world’s leading digital travel platforms, has announced its new AI Trip Planner, which will launch in beta to a selection of US travellers using the company’s app on 28 June 2023. 

Built on the foundation of Booking.com’s existing machine learning models, the AI Trip Planner is also partially powered by large language model (LLM) technology from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to create a new conversational experience for customers planning trips.

Travellers can ask the AI Trip Planner general travel-related questions, as well as more specific queries to support any stage of their trip-planning process, including scoping out potential destinations and accommodation options, providing travel inspiration based on the individual traveller’s needs, and creating destination-specific itineraries.

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Travellers can "chat" with the pilot AI Trip Planner to describe what they’re looking for in broad or specific terms, and ask questions and refine their search in real time, with responses delivered within seconds. 

Travellers can go back and forth between their chat with the AI Trip Planner and the Booking.com app interface as they consider options. Then, by tapping on the accommodation they're interested in, they can complete their reservation as the AI Trip Planner is integrated into the Booking.com app.

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

For more information, visit www.booking.com