Original contributor introduction (2018)
In this special guest feature, Levi Brackman, Principal Data Science Program at Travelport, talks about the impact of artificial intelligence on consumer shopping behaviors, and provides three ways AI will eventually drive the travel booking experience: first, recognize consumers’ dependence on their own AI within their devices; second, increasing data will lead to compounding intelligence; third, powerful AI capabilities are required to compete in reaching the AI-dependent consumer. Levi is data scientist, leader, innovative outside the box strategic thinker and complex problem solver with a unique ability to drive momentum across an organization, as well as with outside partners, to "get things done." He is well experienced in taking data science problems from raw data through the entire analytic and machine learning cycle to a production solution. Levi has a proven ability to use massive, unbounded datasets to create artificially intelligent software solutions that inform/enhance, and are used within, enterprise production systems.
Considering how quickly eCommerce, Siri and Alexa have become a part of consumers’ everyday lives, we’ll eventually reach a point where AI will take its place at the center of shopping – for travel and everything else.
The experience will likely look something like this: When you want to book a trip, you will call upon your favorite AI -- Siri, Alexa, Google, Cortana, Facebook "M", or some yet to be created AI voice assistant -- and tell it the origin, destination, dates and price point. With that one request, the AI will reference all of the existing travel content, or data, across the globe. This includes flights, ground transportation, lodging – including the ancillaries and extras such as seat upgrades or baggage insurance. Then, the AI, knowing your personal preferences for digital room keys, or the extra legroom in business class, will quickly book the best possible solution based on your dates, budget and personal preferences. Done.
In the future, AI “agents” will drive travel experiences as the trusted source behind trip searches and the best possible booking options; but, we’re not there yet.
For now, travelers are beginning to enjoy an increasingly seamless experience from planning and booking, to managing changes and updates in real-time while traveling. As an example of this shift, online travel agencies that offer consumers a one stop shop to book and manage their trips are expected to own 41% of the online digital travel market in the U.S. by 2020.
There are a number of implications telling us that eventually an AI-driven “travel agent” will be managing the travel search and booking processes for us. Let’s examine three key factors that are driving AI’s impact on the future of travel.
1. Loyalty to AI
While consumers may not trust their “AI agent” to complete the entire travel shopping process, they may utilize their preferred AI agent to search specific sources of travel information such as, "Siri, please search for a trip from Denver to London next weekend on Priceline, Expedia and Google Flights." Despite the level of detail consumers provide, the key takeaway here is that consumers will trust their AI agent to do most of the travel search legwork and make their lives easier.
Furthermore, the AI agents of the future will already have a fuller picture of who the consumer is and what their preferences and behavioral patterns are, which allows the AI agent to determine the most relevant results. The AI agent will contact multiple sources of global travel content to stitch together the entire trip and report back with a number of choices the consumer is most likely to choose from, based on the consumer profile it has already created.
2. Compounding intelligence
Since we may end up relying on AI agents for most aspects of their life, those agents will have learned everything about our lives and preferences. These AI agents will therefore not only be intelligent about the world they will become smart about us. For travel this will allow companies to personalize options and offers. These options won’t be targeted directly at the consumer, they will be directed towards the consumers’ AI agent. Thus, there will be two layers of intelligence between the travel provider and the consumer. The first will be the providers AI recommendation engine and the second will be the consumers AI agent.
3. AI-to-AI distribution
In a world of AI agents searching and booking travel on our behalves, agencies and travel providers will need to offer their AI customers highly individualized and personalized content, based on artificial intelligent inputs from the consumers AI agents. Those in the business of selling and managing travel will need powerful AI capabilities in order to respond quickly and easily to requests from consumers’ AI agent. As the level of personalization increases over time with AI agents servicing consumers in nearly every aspect of their lives, the need to aggregate and return highly relevant travel content will become much more complex. Part and parcel of returning a search result will be the imperative to anticipate what the AI agent predicts that the end consumer is looking for and desires.
So how will providers, online travel agencies, travel management companies and the like know if their travel technology is powerful enough to drive bookings in the future of travel?
Ultimately, it comes down to three things:
- Can you immediately respond to a search request with an accurate, intelligent response based on customer data?
- Can your AI capabilities grow and scale with rapidly growing volumes of data from worldwide travel searches, bookings and transactions taking place every second?
- Can your intelligence evolve enough to anticipate travelers’ personalized needs and desires, such as valet dry-cleaning service or automated dinner reservations based on their flight schedule?
The future of travel bookings will all about helping the AI agent deliver best possible results for a search query. In this world, those possessing powerful AI capabilities and layers of behavioral intelligence, will ultimately win.
