Booking Holdings AI Assistants Slash Costs and Boost Bookings

Booking Holdings is seeing benefits from its investments in generative artificial intelligence and is continuing to expand its AI-powered capabilities across its operations, executives said Tuesday (April 28) during the company’s first quarter earnings call.

“Our approach remains disciplined and focused on where AI can drive meaningful impact across our products and services — improving effectiveness for travelers and partners, driving internal efficiencies, and working closely with leading external partners to ensure we are well positioned in the event that current usage of frontier LLMs [large language models] for travel discovery and planning becomes more closely tied to direct, immediate booking execution,” Booking Holdings CEO and President Glenn Fogel said during the call.

Booking Holdings’ travel and related platforms include Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Kayak and OpenTable.

Outlining how the company’s platforms are using AI, Fogel said Priceline’s AI travel agent Penny has been getting more interactive and more personalized, and in early testing “we are seeing a noticeable uplift from users who engage with Penny compared to non-Penny users.”

Booking.com’s AI-driven capabilities have grown to include enhanced natural language search and more dynamic discovery features. In addition, agentic service flows for complaints and cancellations have reduced customer service contacts and improved the post-booking experience.

OpenTable launched an AI Concierge that initially answered diner questions and is now evolving into a broader discovery tool. The platform is also developing capabilities to help OpenTable’s restaurant partners streamline their operations and gain actionable insights. When launching this AI assistant in July 2025, OpenTable said it answered 80% of diners’ questions, reducing the need for phone calls to restaurants.

Agoda found that its AI-assisted automation drove a double-digit year-over-year reduction in customer service costs per booking. Fogel said this is an example of the “notable opportunity” AI presents when it comes to productivity and efficiency.

Beyond these internal efforts, Booking Holdings is also partnering with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Amazon and other leading AI organizations to position itself to meet demand for travel and related services wherever they may appear.

“As gen AI reshapes how travelers discover and plan trips, we are focused on meeting them wherever that journey begins,” Fogel said during the call.