Expedia CEO: AI agents plan trips, but “haven’t” changed booking
Expedia has not yet seen artificial intelligence agents change how customers book travel, CEO Ariane Gorin said Thursday, though early signs point to a possible industry shift.
“It’s a great way for people to do inspiration, to do trip planning,” Gorin told CNBC. “We haven’t seen it change the way they’re actually doing booking.”
The remarks come as personal AI agents such as Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots reach the mainstream, promising to handle tasks from scheduling to shopping. Travel planning and booking is one area where those agents could threaten established sites like Expedia.
Gorin said Expedia is “working with all of the agents” to make sure the company appears in AI results, to understand how the agents gather information and to ensure it has the needed integrations.
She said it is possible AI agents could build their own travel programs and eventually take market share, but argued that industry complexities such as customer service would be hard to replace fully with artificial intelligence.
“People were already shopping across a number of places, so the agent can do that in a much easier way,” Gorin said. “But when it comes to actually booking — being confident that the content that you’re getting is right, the amenities are right, the price is right, if something goes wrong, someone’s going to actually either solve it for you, answer the phone, be there for you — I don’t think those agents are going to do it for you, and that’s why people trust Expedia and come to us.”
Expedia shares were down about 12% Thursday after the company gave weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter guidance on Wednesday. It forecast revenue of $3.69 billion to $3.75 billion for the final three months of the year, a midpoint below the $3.74 billion analyst estimate, according to FactSet.
Gorin attributed the “moderation” in the fourth-quarter guidance to “geopolitical events in the Middle East and Europe,” the midterm elections and the company moving its fall sale from the fourth quarter to the third. She said the third quarter was strong, with total gross bookings up 11% and revenue up 12%.
