00:00:07: Welcome to the ITB Berlin Travel Hero podcast.

00:00:11: I'm your host, Charlotte Dan Davies with Management Consultancy A Bright Approach and I am excited about today's chat titled AI in travel from hype to reality!

00:00:23: Artificial intelligence has dominated almost every conversation in travel over the past couple of years and we've already moved well beyond asking whether AI will transform our industry.

00:00:34: The real question now is where it's making a difference, what is generally working.

00:00:42: Today we are taking a broad look at AI across the travel ecosystem from inspiration to trip planning, hotels, attractions and customer service.

00:00:53: And of course The Rise Of Agentech AI.

00:00:56: I'm delighted to be joined by two experts on industry friends who have been in the forefront of AI innovation for a while.

00:01:04: Welcome Mathis Bolt CEO of Gearka.

00:01:07: Thank

00:01:07: you so much for having me.

00:01:08: It's great to be here.

00:01:10: It's wonderful that you could join us today and also joining us is Alex Bainbridge, who is CEO of Autora.

00:01:16: Welcome, Alex!

00:01:17: Hello good afternoon great to be here

00:01:20: Wonderful to have both as I've said already And i think in fairness our audience.

00:01:25: To set the scene a little bit more You need tell me about How you got to where are today.

00:01:32: So Mattis, why don't go first please?

00:01:35: I actually spent most of my career in travel tag from the end of the nineties when we were trying to build... ...I often say too early Airbnb but we wanted a digitized bed and breakfast at the Dachh regions

00:01:49: which

00:01:50: completely failed back into days due two reasons.

00:01:53: one none had internet.

00:01:57: so they first have to fix the foundation before you could actually start sending online bookings.

00:02:03: But this got me into the travel tech industry and created my first big opportunity where I joined booking.com, spent there as a manager director.

00:02:14: ten years building the supply side in big parts of Europe moved to Amsterdam at the headquarter from two thousand twelve to two thousand fifteen overseeing global strategic partnerships.

00:02:25: And in two thousand fifteen, I felt like you should do something new.

00:02:29: and there was one particular segment in travel that hasn't been digitized.

00:02:34: And yeah reformed as the other verticals on.

00:02:38: that has been tourism activity.

00:02:40: so I joined.

00:02:40: get your guide as a vice president helps it to scale the marketplace till two thousand twenty three through very interesting time called Corona.

00:02:50: And since two thousand twenty three I'm the CEO of Giada, Giada's foundational data layer for the travel industry.

00:02:56: So we're really taking care that all the businesses can operate on high quality standardized and normalized data.

00:03:03: super insight you've crossed over a few categories there.

00:03:05: so that's really good with the light to drive your Alex tell us how you got.

00:03:09: where are today?

00:03:11: Yeah well i started as a computer scientist...I have a degree in Computer Science but I always loved travel.

00:03:20: With some university friends, we drove from London to Kathmandu which took four months.

00:03:25: And so ever since then I have been in travel and mostly in travel tech... ...I combine my love of travel with My Love Of Tech.

00:03:33: Spent time In the hotel sector!

00:03:36: I've worked for three different airlines leading projects on e-commerce & distribution but mostly i'm better known as a sightseeing technologist.. ..i was The founder of A company called TorCMS Which I sold To Palacys and so I got an exit in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen.

00:03:53: And while i was looking around thinking what should I do next?

00:03:55: ...and...I got into autonomous vehicles!

00:03:58: I've been working on AI problems since twenty eighteen full-time.. I remember speaking at ITB Berlin On the e-travel stage about Autonomous Vehicles In Twenty Eighteen ..And like twenty people turned up No one really cared about AI right then?

00:04:13: So What I have Been Building is a solution that completely changes how we think about in-destination experiences.

00:04:21: And since autonomous vehicles, We've now branched out to include AI glasses and AI agents which I'm sure will come onto lots during this conversation but that's my background!

00:04:32: Let's dive straight into it...we met a couple of days ago so let me have a little chat where you want us.

00:04:41: Let's just say that we've all seen and heard the hype around AI.

00:04:44: What might as I'll go to you first, what one development?

00:04:48: And I would love a relatively short answer here was one development over the past twelve months That has genuinely surprised you.

00:04:56: yeah i think it probably how quickly ai and llm became commodity.

00:05:01: So when you approach a problem, you're not talking too much about which model use it is more like how do you create most customer value and the LLNs in the models?

00:05:11: I think its just commodity that sits on top as an additional layer.

00:05:15: But the foundation of this area where people are now spending time to get that right.

00:05:20: Alex your observation In

00:05:22: my biggest impact i've seen last few weeks Is that The evolution voice.

00:05:28: couple years ago we got sixty different AI characters who can be put into different marketing positions and can lead tours.

00:05:36: But we've now bought this new model from OpenAI called GPT Live, and it's Duplex!

00:05:42: Duplex means that you could talking to the computer at the same time as a computer is talking to you... ...and this completely humanizes our conversation.

00:05:51: I now spend probably four or five hours per day talking to GPT Live, which is connected to Codex.

00:05:59: Which another open AI product.

00:06:01: and that's how I do all my development...I don't actually write code but just talk about writing code now!

00:06:06: And i think that GPT live connected to Codex the culmination of a couple of years of progress on voice.

00:06:14: And I think when non-technical people, none early adopters begin to start using this... ...I think it will be game changing!

00:06:21: I no longer type at a keyboard, i just talk which means.. ..i no longer have to be sat by my desk You know?

00:06:27: Just simple things like that.

00:06:28: I like that.

00:06:29: two very different approaches here and you guys are sort looking at it in the last should we say weeks or months from slightly distant perspective.

00:06:37: Where do you believe AI?

00:06:39: It's actually creating the biggest commercial value in travel today.

00:06:43: I mean, where are we seeing measurable ROI?

00:06:46: Mattis can i start with you again please?

00:06:49: one part is very obvious it's obviously everything around automatization.

00:06:53: get up processes and plays.

00:06:55: Customer service is a big one, where I think in lot of businesses have invested.

00:06:59: And when you look into the search funnel... ...I would say it's an inspirational and recommendation layer that creates most value.

00:07:07: at the same time we shouldn't lose customer view here as in particular process automation is very often more internally focused to optimize for costs But doing so not necessarily mean that your customer has a better experience, sometimes even the opposite.

00:07:26: And I think we need to be very mindful here.

00:07:28: for whom do you optimize?

00:07:29: and they're been out losing their customers?

00:07:31: Yeah!

00:07:31: That's a very good point.

00:07:32: Alex, what are seeing in measurable ROIs out there?

00:07:36: Well i'm going take slightly negative points which is...I still thing AI sat on the opportunity column not in the problem column.

00:07:45: And so people who are thinking, well what innovations can we do?

00:07:49: or all going towards AI?

00:07:50: For many it's still not quite there In terms of The must-do thing that they have to be doing over the next couple months which It would be if it was a key problem.

00:08:00: and the reason why this happens is because in different sectors People have got different problems.

00:08:05: in hotels and flights.

00:08:07: This is a distribution adjustment.

00:08:11: We've seen distribution adjustments over the last twenty years and this is just one more distribution adjustment.

00:08:17: In sightseeing it's an entirely new product set, its gonna be more impactful in sightseing...in terms of things that people have to get their heads around.

00:08:24: I'm struggling to see real eye numbers.

00:08:27: we can see lots of people talking about AI.

00:08:29: i'm really struggling getting actual numbers down saying you know This how much money You are About To Lose Over The Next Twelve Months.

00:08:36: So therefore THIS IS YOUR BUDGET TO SPEND ON AI NOW.

00:08:40: all say that this is the direction of travel, and therefore these projects have to happen.

00:08:45: Let's move on.

00:08:57: Are we seeing innovation everywhere in your opinion?

00:09:00: Or are some of these sectors just really dying ahead of the game.

00:09:04: Matt, I'll go back to you again please.

00:09:06: Yeah

00:09:07: i think it varies on kind of state-of-the business and how tech savvy they are And obviously whether they can afford the investments that has the teams at hand.

00:09:17: So, for example in hotels what we do see is that hotel chains are moving extremely fast.

00:09:22: Many of them have already established partnerships with some of the larger LLM models.

00:09:27: they really look into automatization creating efficiency throughout their entire portfolio while an independent hotel necessarily struggles simply because it don't have resources and obviously then buy certain external solutions available.

00:09:43: think about a chatbot broadly see is adapted, but that obviously it's not where AI necessarily delivers the biggest value.

00:09:53: I think its really about AI orchestration making sense of all different silos in a hotel connect them.

00:10:01: so there are far more data work needed before you can actually apply AI on top And I think that is where I would suggest people should spend most of their time on before they actually even think about how to apply AI at scale.

00:10:15: OTA's obviously... investing a lot into it, there's a lot of discussion whether they get disrupted.

00:10:22: Whether I still need an OTA?

00:10:24: My personal opinion on that is obviously one the broadest supply contracts in the world.

00:10:31: There are so many different layers required and they have established very strong trustable brand over the years to actually serve their customer better.

00:10:46: I think in the area of content creation, there's a lot of innovation happening creating more products customizing personalization.

00:10:54: That is what we are broadly seeing into those activities.

00:10:58: Alex you can probably talk about it little bit more detail.

00:11:01: The only companies that have been acquired by OTAs and others our trip planners.

00:11:08: So you as a consumer going to our website, go into an AI agent or some other it might be chat in WhatsApp.

00:11:14: Some kind of service like that and saying hey I'm going with friends for five days we're going Berlin.

00:11:21: what do we plan this?

00:11:23: That's where the start-up action is.

00:11:26: It's not necessarily where the industry action is, but it's whether start-up action.

00:11:32: Is and that's where the acquisitions and mergers are happening today.

00:11:35: I'll come back to Mattis his points slightly on hotels.

00:11:38: I think the largest impact on AI will be the impact on The location of a hotel?

00:11:44: I think as we introduce autonomous vehicles and flying cars like e hang from China will no longer need the concept of location, which after all is the primary criteria consumers use when selecting a hotel.

00:11:58: I think that the concept on location would change!

00:12:01: You'll no longer want to have a hotel that's compact and has lots of pickup drop-off space or... gardens to land your flying cars.

00:12:13: And so when you start talking about ten, twenty-thirty year impacts which after all if you're in hotel investment that's the kind of timeline You think about then The impact of AI is not About orchestration it's Not about efficiency It's about have we actually put this Hotel In the right place?

00:12:29: So

00:12:29: I want To talk a little bit about just sort Of the traveler journey because i think This Is something that resonates and A lot of our listeners can relate to as well AI changing the way that travelers discover.

00:12:41: This is a little bit basic, but still I think we should go over this.

00:12:44: how do they discover plan and ultimately very soon or even already book their trips?

00:12:50: Alex let's kick off with you this time.

00:12:53: so The first thing that was i think going to happen really soon Is the impact of the decentralized web.

00:13:00: now We all use decentralized technology today every one of us And Today You could call it email in that I can email you, You Can Email Me and we're on different services.

00:13:10: We don't need them to interact in any way.

00:13:13: there's no API agreement.

00:13:15: it just as a protocol enables data from move one place.

00:13:19: another i think were going end up

00:13:21: with

00:13:22: happening in consumer Traveller preferences.

00:13:26: So am I vegetarian?

00:13:28: Do i have any mobility issues?

00:13:30: and one of the things that i've been working on with a group in The Decentralized Identity Foundation is A cross industry standard On how we can get those preferences between to be shared In a GDPR And other legal requirements To be complied With.

00:13:46: so, when a consumer checks-in at a hotel and they're vegetarian Check-in person who may not be a person in the future, maybe a robot will be able to suggest something.

00:13:57: They go oh you should go this restaurant in this hotel because they've got really good salads.

00:14:01: I don't know what that quite gonna say but The ability to have all of these multiple touch points during a journey or sharing the same preference base enables totally new, totally frictionless travel.

00:14:14: And ultimately it gets us towards what some of the online travel agents have been trying to do which they call The Connected Trip.

00:14:25: AI and preference sharing is going to be you know... It's gonna get us quite a long way there.

00:14:31: Thank you for that.

00:14:32: Again, also a little bit of future gazing there for you.

00:14:34: Mattis let's bring it right into today maybe a little better as well.

00:14:38: What do you see us to sort the advantages?

00:14:41: For the travelers using AI at the moment?

00:14:44: Yeah I think they're the biggest consumer shift.

00:14:46: what we all See is obviously that people Do not search but ask and They are very explicit questions And other suppliers in businesses need To be able to answer these questions with structured data.

00:14:59: I think that's the first point, which is very critical and based on our experience it is by far not.

00:15:06: where should be we see even more tells do not or can't provide all of necessary information for a booking dot com or to an Expedia or to a trip dot-com To be able to answer this question like if you're very explicit example last year i was searching And we were traveling in autumn and the key requirement was, We look for a thinker with heated pool.

00:15:30: How often do you or don't find whether it's heated or not heated?

00:15:35: You see that they're at cool but is it heated on all?

00:15:37: Then an expression like what does the size of this pool?

00:15:40: there are so many questions That people nowadays want to know before They make your commitment.

00:15:45: But the data information Is Not At least available.

00:15:50: It exists.

00:15:50: They exist in the head of the GM, they are people that I able to answer it but these haven't taken the effort yet To put it in a structured way That you can make it available to the LLMs.

00:16:02: or another one is let's say You drive a Mercedes-Benz class not saying you should But lets assume your Drive One and you book A City Hotel And you want to park Your G-Class In The Garage.

00:16:11: What is the height of the garage?

00:16:13: Does it actually fit in, yes or no.

00:16:15: Simple question electric charging.

00:16:17: another one gets better now on the content field.

00:16:19: that totals communicated but all these little things can kill a conversion if you're not working on this really basic foundational data fundament.

00:16:29: That might you.

00:16:30: every business should be focused

00:16:32: And in sightseeing, we've got exactly the same problem.

00:16:34: In that... We have spent the last twenty-five years aggregating data But the data thats all been collected and all of processes that are being built with technology Have be.

00:16:45: the process is underpin ticketing so that none of them underpin the experience itself.

00:16:51: So you put a pair of AI glasses on and walk around in museum, You require completely different set data to be in those AI Glasses than would have been necessary to bring the thirty euro ticket into the Museum first place.

00:17:06: That's key problem in Sightseeing is we've just been collecting, distributing building partnerships between long entities or the Long Data

00:17:16: we're very much in a dream on this particular point is the data points.

00:17:20: you know that i sometimes simply missing when people are doing the planning but it's obviously coming and its beginning to come together rather fast as well.

00:17:27: We've already touched on hospitality and hotels.

00:17:29: im gonna go on talk about something thats being discussed absolutely everywhere at all travel conferences which is trust still around ai, and a genetic AI.

00:17:39: And despite, I would say AI becoming sort of major influence in travel planning as we've just discussed according to focus right research very recently around half of travellers, they still go back and visit the original supplier website before booking.

00:17:54: And I think this goes hand in hand with what you're both just saying that... You simply can't get all the information that you are looking for!

00:18:02: The traveller is looking to have got many more questions than they ever had before.

00:18:07: now That sort feel like answers at their fingertips.

00:18:11: What does it ultimately tell us about trust from a traveller?

00:18:16: to the supplier websites matters, maybe we can kick off with you.

00:18:20: I think trust is a big word and it's important.

00:18:23: in which context is used here?

00:18:26: So i think that all of us trust AI to optimize our emails for example or handle certain tasks.

00:18:33: this isn't problem where trust comes into kind of hand over your credit card and AI is making a commitment for you on your behalf, eventually even.

00:18:46: And I think here the trust has not established... ...and i do believe there's good reasons for it as we don't have a lot of experience with LLMs yet!

00:18:58: While everyone says they will be neutral.. ..they'll do everything that YOU want.

00:19:04: These are commercial businesses and when you now see already certain movements of the LLMs, how they want to make ads available within a chat.

00:19:13: The key question in my view in the future is How much can-and will I trust LLMS?

00:19:19: To makes the right recommendation?

00:19:21: this in my views it's going to take some time.

00:19:25: so i do believe It adds a lot value upper funnel Recommendation but people still wants stay in control on the last steps when it comes to a clear commitment.

00:19:37: And one thing we shouldn't forget, I think there's big difference between corporate booking where you just booked let say One Night and New York three-star hotel...I think most people would be comfortable.

00:19:47: that AI adjust handles based upon your preference is always staying same one summer vacation often even very emotional.

00:19:59: Some at least enjoy doing the planning and do is a research in looking into different options.

00:20:04: so we shouldn't necessarily assume that everyone wants to get rid of this inspirational face an happen.

00:20:11: I just tell you should go to this hotel, and you please board this plane, I think there's more to it.

00:20:18: And the comparison that i often like is when we go back a couple of years in time for Internet of Things You might recall at some point where everyone was super excited about your fridge can do cool stuff with you and everything connected.

00:20:34: nowadays all your machines are connected on the internet but who really uses them?

00:20:40: Is there really a customer need for it?

00:20:42: And I think that is, again how we should think about AI and LLMs.

00:20:47: In the future will be just an invisible layer That serves hopefully customers better.

00:20:53: But we won't speak about the term LLM in AI... ...in the future anymore as much today.

00:20:59: Same as if you don't talk about, i dont know, cloud storage or mobile desktop.

00:21:06: It doesn't matter what matters.

00:21:09: How do I benefit from it?

00:21:10: Alex,

00:21:11: some quick observations from you on this one as well maybe.

00:21:14: We've all

00:21:14: designed an industry around the authoritative source being the supplier and their OTA representative but we're going to have an industry where the consumer will have a personal AI agent who will be educated so they will know some of the answers themselves already and key questions that they need to ask on behalf of their human.

00:21:41: That is where it gets interesting, you as a supplier have to be trusted now not by the HUMAN guest But you have to be trusted by their AI agent.

00:21:56: And so that completely changes how you pitch trust because in classical marketing, humans can use emotion to create trust whereas technology agents don't really care about emotions too much.

00:22:09: they just... They care about stats and all sorts of other things.

00:22:12: We're going to have the market to AI agents who are working on behalf of their humans In a completely different way than what we're marketing human guests today and fundamentally that will come down to how we pitch trust.

00:22:27: I love both sets of observations here very much, if were recording this podcast two years from now what do you think would be saying has changed the most Alex?

00:22:41: It's a great question.

00:22:42: I tend to think in quite long time frames, so i'm already thinking about what is happening... ...in two years.

00:22:48: three years' time because im building for that So any technologist who only builds for next season is building reactively rather than proactively.

00:23:01: We're all going to be using in two years time.

00:23:03: And I think we are gonna have a mesh of AI agents, perhaps using Google's agent-agent protocol which seems pretty solid and this will completely change the funnel that just... The whole tourism industry and hotel & airline industry has been building for the last twenty five thirty forty years because in order to have an attourism experience, you may now be incorporating ten-twenty different services each for just a minute part of the journey all connected via an agent-agent mesh network.

00:23:39: And I think that will happen but... The only reason it won't happen is because the incumbents—the big top-of-the-funnel players like the OTAs are not keen on it because they'll destroy their funnel.

00:23:53: So we'll see how this all plays out, but I reckon that's what will be talking about in two years time.

00:23:58: And that is why i'm building today.

00:24:00: I love it!

00:24:00: Mattis In your view What would have changed the most from now?

00:24:05: Do you think of this conversation?

00:24:08: We won't speak about AI and LLM anymore.

00:24:11: It will become just invisible Incorporated.

00:24:14: That probably is a biggest sign that its working.

00:24:18: On that note we do need to wrap up.

00:24:21: We will continue to have this conversation.

00:24:23: Before we know it, It's been my absolute pleasure to host this one today.

00:24:45: Is it very clear that AI is no longer just a future trend?

00:24:50: We need to think, what was it Alex said?

00:24:52: ten-twenty-thirty years ahead!

00:24:54: Its already reshaping every part of the travel ecosystem.

00:24:58: thanks everyone for listening to The ITB Berlin Travel Hero podcast.

00:25:03: For more podcasts as always please visit ITB Berlins website Save Travel till next time.