EP 351 - Can AI Finally Help Us Have a Better Travel Experience? - Adrienne Enggist - Booking.com

Is artificial intelligence about to transform how we experience travel, from planning a trip to dealing with unexpected issues along the way? Does AI have the potential to make travel planning seamless by turning stressful, complex decisions into smooth, intuitive processes?

In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we spoke with Adrienne Enggist, Senior Director of Product at Booking.com, to explore how AI is set to revolutionize travel.

Some of the topics that Adrienne discussed include:

• How AI can structure unstructured data to create a more agentic relationship, where it anticipates a traveler’s needs without the traveler having to micromanage every detail.
• The idea that customer reviews can be gamified or manipulated, leading to mismatched expectations. Adrienne pointed out that AI can help tackle this issue by filtering out misleading or irrelevant information from reviews.
• The subtle difference between 'personalization' and 'relevance'. It’s not about knowing every detail of a traveler’s life; it’s about showing them the most relevant options for their trip based on context and past behavior.
• Importantly, Adrienne doesn’t believe the human touch in travel will disappear. Instead, AI will help scale human interactions, allowing customer service agents to focus on complex issues while AI handles the more mundane tasks.
• The importance for large platforms, including Booking, to use and manage all of the data they gather with care and ensure at all levels that data is protected and privacy is paramount.