Expedia is leaning further into artificial intelligence with its suite of new products that CEO Peter Kern hopes will cement consumer loyalty to the travel giant’s brands.
“Providing all these tools that are the new technology can allow for what we think creates the best product experience, and that’s what’s going to drive customers back to our products instead of others,” Kern says in an exclusive interview with Fast Company.
Expedia has been adding generative AI features to its platform for several months. It added an OpenAI-powered chatbot to its iOS app in April, offering users guidance on planning trips and activities. Building off of that, Expedia is now launching a tech incubator where consumers can access beta features and leave feedback. The first available option, called Project Explorer, is an updated version of the original chatbot experience that gives users more guidance.
Project Explorer will curate trips based on different budget tiers, location, time of year, and interest. “We found certain areas where some travelers didn’t quite know what to ask or didn’t quite know what to ask next after they got a response or they got a response and they got stuck in the journey,” says Expedia CTO Rathi Murthy. “And we enhanced our capabilities to start with a discovery.”
The original chatbot with OpenAI hasn’t moved the needle yet in terms of meaningful conversion rates, executives say, but an increasing number of customers are starting to use it to help with trip planning.
“It’s just helping travelers stop and think about what they want to do, and from there take them through our trip planning,” Murthy adds.
Expedia will also use generative AI to sift through reviews and property listings in response to questions or prompts. The hope is that users can easily ask a question in the system, like whether their intended hotel has strong Wi-Fi or coffee machines in each room, and immediately get a conversational response, rather than having to search through tons of reviews and pages.
Companies looking to summarize large numbers of reviews have been able to turn to AI for help condensing information, as seen with Amazon and Microsoft. But Expedia’s offering takes the tech a step further by pulling specific answers to questions consumers need in order to make their booking decisions.
“It’s very hard for our travelers to get to that level of detail easily because you have to look at so many reviews, look at all of our property detail cards, and talk to our friends,” Murthy says. “Now you can use this combined set of capabilities to look through all of our reviews and give you a quick summary. So it’s much easier. . . . All these capabilities tied together help us close bookings faster.”
The travel giant’s trip-planning feature allows travelers to plan, coordinate group trips, and book everything into a single itinerary on its namesake Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo platforms. Within the new offering, groups can vote and comment on itineraries including hotels, activities, flights, and car rentals. Groups aren’t able to split payments on items, but that may change down the line.
The fall product announcements come as Expedia continues its stronger focus on product offerings. “That’s going to allow us to rapidly innovate so that we can deliver more and more innovation faster,” Kern says. “We’ve launched some cool things right now that we’re talking about, but there’s a lot more coming. And I think the pace, the breadth, and everything else will just accelerate from here.”
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