ChatGPT can now help travellers plan their holiday in the Expedia App
Expedia announced its exciting new use for artificial intelligence with the beta launch of a new in-app travel planning experience powered by ChatGPT.
Expedia members can now start an open-ended conversation in the Expedia app and get recommendations on places to go, where to stay, how to get around, and what to see and do based on the chat. But much more than that, the new trip planning experience brings in intelligent shopping by automatically saving hotels discussed in the conversation to a “trip” in the app, helping members stay organised and making it easier for them to start choosing dates, checking availability, and adding on flights, cars or activities.
“Every great trip can be made or lost while planning and shopping. As the leader in travel tech, Expedia continues to build out the core operating system for the industry, constantly enhancing capabilities and making trip planning faster, simpler and even more informative,” said Peter Kern, Vice Chairman and CEO, Expedia Group.
“By integrating ChatGPT into the Expedia app and combining it with our other AI-based shopping capabilities, like hotel comparison, price tracking for flights and trip collaboration tools, we can now offer travellers an even more intuitive way to build their perfect trip.”
Expedia also recently built a plugin for ChatGPT so a traveller can start a conversation directly on the ChatGPT site and select the Expedia plugin to bring a trip to life. When they’re ready to book, they go straight to Expedia. With today’s news, conversational trip planning powered by ChatGPT is directly in the Expedia app, allowing members to now get the benefit of dreaming about travel in the app experience. It’s also easier for members to access exclusive discounts and rewards for their trip.
Expedia already integrates AI and machine learning (ML) throughout its platform to create a seamless experience from planning to post-booking. Examples of how this comes to life for travellers are:
- To help travellers shop, AI and ML are used to deliver personalised and relevant trip options out of 1.26 quadrillion variables like hotel location, room type, date ranges, price points and much more
- For confidence in flight booking, price tracking uses Expedia’s comprehensive flight data, AI and ML to compare today’s flight price with historical price trends and track price fluctuations, so travellers can confidently decide when to book and earn rewards.
- For unexpected trip changes, travellers can resolve issues quickly using Expedia’s AI-powered Virtual agent available 24/7.
This collaboration with OpenAI is currently in the beta testing phase, allowing Expedia to rapidly evolve the experience based on how members interact with it. It’s also important to remember that while many measures have been taken to limit inaccurate results and inappropriate responses, at times the experience may not work exactly as expected. Feedback from both our employees and all those using the experience will be continually looked at to make sure responses meet our standards.
The conversational trip planning beta experience is rolling out globally in the English language on the Expedia iOS app.
By Bettina Badon
