Booking.com Expands AI-Powered Travel Features

Digital travel platform Booking.com is expanding its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered features.

The expansion, announced by the Dutch company Wednesday (Oct. 30), is part of a larger embrace of AI tools within the travel sector.

Among the new features is Smart Filter, which lets travelers describe their ideal property in their own words. From there, generative AI scans Booking’s inventory to apply relevant filters and remove the need for manual filtering.

Another feature, Property Q&A, lets travelers ask specific questions about a property, with the AI instantly retrieving answers from the property listing, traveler reviews and photos.

“Our journey with AI for over a decade has always been about leveraging technology to make travel more intuitive and personalized, helping us fulfill our mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world,” said Joe Futty, VP of product marketplace at Booking.com. “With GenAI, we’re not just enhancing the trip planning process — we’re facilitating more tailored experiences that adapt and respond to travelers’ needs faster than ever before.”

In the future, Futty added, generative AI will help travelers manage trips by handling things like flight cancellations with real-time solutions.

These new offerings are happening, as PYMNTS wrote last month, at a time when the travel sector is increasingly embracing AI.

For example, Google recently demonstrated its latest AI system, Gemini, at the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) Fair, generating images of travel destinations and creating personalized trip itineraries.

“The event underscores the travel industry’s growing adoption of AI technologies to enhance customer experiences,” PYMNTS wrote. “As companies like Google…continue to explore AI applications, travelers may soon benefit from more personalized and efficient services. This collaboration between tech giants and traditional travel companies signals a promising future for AI-driven innovations in the travel sector.”

Elsewhere, United Airlines earlier this year debuted AI-powered technology designed to keep passengers better informed during weather-related flight delays, part of a broader strategy to offer real-time information to customers, particularly during travel disruptions.

The airline has employed specialized customer service teams in its network operations center, using generative AI to send detailed messages about flight changes.

With more people traveling, “we wanted to give our customers an easier way to stay connected to real-time information about their flight,” Jason Birnbaum, United’s chief information officer, said in a news release. “By combining innovative technology-enabled tools with people power, we can give more people even more in-the-moment details about their flight.”