Technology

OpenAI just admitted what Google already learned with "Book on Google" back in 2022: people use AI to discover, not to buy. I fully agree with Simone the reason is structural, not technical. A hotel booking is not a single transaction.

Conversational platforms will complete bookings, but not by simplifying hospitality's complexity. They will succeed when they can orchestrate it. Today a single reservation touches PMS, CRS, channel management, payment processing, cancellation logic etc.

I’d agree. A retail transaction, even a high value one, is much simpler than a hotel or flight booking. Shopify is a top retail IBE, but its funnel is much simpler (view products, select product, pick colour, select size SMLXL, add to basket, add an upsell box of chocs, set delivery address, etc), than the well-converting IBEs in hospitality like Journey, Net Affinity, P3, Profit Room, Allora etc.

Optimising AI literacy in F&B operations starts with a simple principle: buying technology is not the same as building capability.Too many operators still approach AI as a procurement exercise rather than an operational transformation discipline.

AI investments in F&B deliver value only when adoption is treated as seriously as the technology. The implementation gap is rarely caused by weak tools. It is usually caused by weak translation between strategy, tech implementation and frontline execution.

AI literacy in F&B does not start with tools. It starts with understanding what the operation actually produces.Most teams I see try to adopt AI before they can even describe what their workflow does step by step – mostly for the lack of SOP.

In a word, no. Websites were designed to entice humans to view, discover, consider, buy. They are heavy with images, HTML, JavaScript, etc. to entice us in and encourage us to dwell. APIs were invented for M2M, machine to machine, transactions.

Agents will be everywhere, but behind the scenes. Booking agents are a short-term solution; using AI to simulate human behavior is like asking for a faster horse. Agents that behave as people, visiting websites and simulating human behavior (clicking on links, filling forms) are an incredible technological feat, but are a poor solution to most real-word problems: - Agents are very slow, because they have to replicate user paths built for humans- They fail often, because every website they visit is differentThe future will be MCP- and API-based, with agents interacting with those MCP/API.

Crystal ball time. 5 to 10 years i think we will quite similar to where we are today. the slow pace of change will not change and traditional tech stacks will still be around. lack of motivation to change, contracts and low investment will hinder the change.

Hotels are better positioned for the AI era than most people think. They own something no LLM can replicate: years of proprietary guest data and a direct relationship with the customer. That's a genuine competitive moat, and agentic AI is finally what turns it into action.

The takeaway that stays with me isn't about any single technology. It's about what AI can actually do to change the way we experience travel.An example of this was the live demo I gave on stage to change my own flight home - not by calling a helpdesk, not by navigating an app - but by having a natural conversation with an AI agent that handled everything live: rebooking, seat, baggage, transfer all in one simple phone call.The audience went quiet for a moment.

What stood out to me most at ITB Berlin this year was how much the conversation around AI has shifted from theory to real, everyday use. Hoteliers and operators are no longer asking whether AI matters, but where it can make the biggest difference for guests and teams right now.