What is agentic AI, and would you book a flight?

Companies are racing to develop AI tools to make reservations for flights, hotels on your behalf

- GABE CASTRO-ROOT

A BOT MAY SOON be booking your vacation. Millions of travellers already use artificial intelligence to compare options for flights, hotels, rental cars and more.

About 30% of US travellers say they're comfortable using AI to plan a trip. But these tools are about to take a big step.

Agentic AI, a rapidly emerging type of artificial intelligence, will be able to find and pay for reservations with limited human involvement, developers say. Companies like Expedia, Google, Kayak and Priceline are experimenting with or rolling out agentic AI tools. Travellers using agentic AI would set parametres like dates and a price range for their travel plans, then hand over their credit card information to the bot, which would monitor prices and book on their behalf.

These tools, still in their early stages of deployment, are set to grow rapidly: 80% of travel executives plan to begin offering agentic AI tools 'at scale' within the next five years, according to a September report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company and Skift, a travel industry publication.

How can travellers use agentic AI?