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Expedia Wants To Use AI To Cut Google Out of Its Trip-Planning Business - Slashdot

Dec 18, 2023 - tech.slashdot.org
Travel website Expedia is planning to use AI to encourage users to start their travel search on its platform instead of using external search engines. The company, which already uses AI for customer service and property descriptions, aims to use AI to recommend travel destinations based on users' previous trips, thereby increasing direct traffic to its site. This is part of a long-term strategy to shift the balance of power on the web, although it is still in the early stages.

Rajesh Naidu, chief architect and head of data management at Expedia, says the goal is to provide users with recommendations based on the company's extensive library of flight and hotel information, as well as users' travel preferences. Naidu believes that while there's nothing wrong with using search engines to plan trips, there's value in making the travel planning process more streamlined.

Key takeaways:

  • Expedia is planning to use AI to recommend travel destinations to customers based on their previous trips and to increase direct traffic to its site.
  • The company already uses AI for some customer service features and to help property owners describe their homes and hotels.
  • Rajesh Naidu, chief architect and head of data management at Expedia, says the goal is to streamline the travel planning process by getting users to start their trips in one place.
  • Expedia hopes to train large language models on its 70 petabytes' worth of data to recommend places to go, stay and do, and to continue refining and personalizing these recommendations.
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