Weekly Insights. February 15, 2025

Are hoteliers ready for the new era of personal AI Agents?

Recently Google's CEO Sundar Pichai proclaimed that the ultimate goal of their Gemini AI is the creation of a "universal AI agent that will be useful in everyday life."

There have been heated discussions in the media about the expected rise in 2025 of the personal AI agents and their impact on travel and hospitality distribution.

The presumption is that AI agents can research, plan and book travelers' vacations autonomously, thus circumventing OTAs and other intermediaries.

Some experts even predict that the AI agents will dramatically change the current travel distribution status quo and even make the OTAs obsolete thus establishing the golden age of direct consumer-supplier relationships.

Mario Gavira, VP of Growth at Kiwi summarized well this belief: "The personal AI agents promise to cut through the complexity of travel planning like a hot knife through butter, connecting directly with supplier websites and APIs to create the perfect itinerary."

Other experts claim that the OTAs will be the beneficiaries of the AI agents, since they are already investing heavily in the adoption of AI, and in the same way they have mastered SEO, the OTAs will master AIO - artificial intelligence optimization, in order their offerings to found first by the personal AI agents.

The question is, how can hoteliers prepare for the rise of the personal AI agents and be the ultimate beneficiaries of this exciting AI era?

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