The Priceline application is demonstrated on an Apple iPhone.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
As latest artificial intelligence tools make their way beyond consumer chatbots and web search and right into a widening array of companies, online travel is jumping aboard.
Booking, Expedia and Airbnb are amongst travel corporations on the lookout for ways to ease the booking process and help consumers more swiftly make plans.
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“Do not know where you would like to go? This tool will allow you to narrow that down pretty quickly,” Priceline CEO Brett Keller told CNBC.
Priceline, a unit of Booking, just revealed a latest partnership with Google Cloud. The generative AI tools from Google will allow prospective travelers to speak with a chatbot in a conversational way when planning and receive personalized hotel bookings.
Keller said AI will help customers make more thoughtful decisions on where and when to travel, in addition to help his employees speed up response times.
“We employ 1000’s of individuals today who answer customer inquiries,” Keller said. “AI will speed up the agent’s ability to provide actionable advice.”
Keller said if an agent helps a customer make changes to a visit, all different legs have complex cancellation policies. Keller says the brand new technology can read that information in a short time and reduce wait times. Google Cloud is providing the tools and capabilities to assist Priceline collect and scrub data that may then be used to assist customers.
Carrie Tharp, Google Cloud’s vice chairman of industries, said the corporate’s Vertex AI technology will provide location-based information to users, who can ask questions comparable to: “What’s a kid-friendly activity? I even have two hours to spare.”
Tharp said the information Priceline brings to Google’s model will remain with Priceline, not Google.
Earlier this 12 months, Expedia was among the many first players to signal its investment in generative AI. The net travel company launched its first ChatGPT-powered travel tool, and CEO Peter Kern told CNBC in April that it is going to make it much easier to book, cancel and edit trips.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told CNBC the next month that generative AI will make his company’s processes more efficient.
“In the subsequent 12 months, you will see major changes to our customer support — the standard gets higher, the prices will probably be lower,” he said.
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