We are already witnessing the emergence of the Personal AI Agents. ChatGPT Operator, Google Gemini AI Agent, Microsoft Copilot AI Agent, Claude AI Agent, etc. are already a fact and their travel research, planning and booking capabilities are growing by the minute.

The booking path via the Personal AI Agent will be very simple: the traveler tasks via voice or typed prompts their AI Agent to find a hotel within certain parameters (location, dates, price range) and, based on all of their "master's" preferences, the AI Agent finds and books the hotel and all necessary auxiliary services.

The question is, will hoteliers invest adequately in AI technology and talent to prepare for the rise of the Personal AI Agents and become the ultimate beneficiaries of this exciting AI era?

Hotels will provide ARI (Availability, Rates, Inventory) to the Agentic AI platforms like ChatGPT Operator via the use of AI connectivity middleware like the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent-to-Agent (A2A) or via APIs to the property's CRS, Channel Manager or cloud PMS.

DirectBooker, an AI connectivity startup backed by former Tripadvisor CEO Steve Kaufer and ex-Google Travel head Richard Holden, wants to enable hotel ARI directly into AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, circumventing the OTAs and making hotel websites obsolete.

I am sure we will witness a number of these AI connectivity startups over the next 5 years, most probably using shortcuts to tech inventory aggregators like CRS, Channel Managers or cloud PMS to access ARI.

The question is, what would be the viability of these startups? How are going to make money? Charge a commission? A flat reservation fee like a pass through GDS fee?

Even if these new AI connectivity startups aggregate thousands of hotels two important questions remain:

  • Will the AI platforms want to work with them when they can get instant access to 750,000 hotels from the OTAs?
  • How are they going to compete with the OTAs who are paying the AI platforms affiliate fees from their fat commissions and merchant markups?