Are chatbots the new social media?

This really resonated with me. People aren't leaving social media; they're moving where they think and decide. The public feed is noise; the real influence now happens inside private conversations. In hospitality, that's seismic: guests no longer "discover" hotels, they ask chatbots where to stay and trust the answer. Influence isn't likes and followers anymore, it's whether your brand, your standards, and your expertise are present in that one-to-one decision moment. The future belongs to those who stop broadcasting and start earning trust inside the conversation.

Chatbots are not replacing social media, but they are taking over the part that matters most. Social networks are still where people watch, scroll, and perform. Chatbots are where people think, decide, and ask questions they would not ask in public. That shift changes how influence works: it moves from being loud and visible to being quiet and personal. Instead of shaping opinions through feeds and followers, influence now happens inside private conversations, where trust and relevance matter more than reach.

It will turn into "anti-social media marketing", where introverts go down the spiral of never-ending conversations with their AI bff, bombarded by paid ads to reinforce the downfall. 

The displacement toward 1-to-1 dialogue is a fundamental accountability check for our industry. Simone identifies the "intimate chamber," but the real consequence is the total collapse of broad-based digital visibility. When influence stops circulating through staged spectacle, generic reviews and paid influencers become digital static—they lack the authenticity guests now demand.

In this zero-click paradigm, AI summarizes the narrative, effectively making Source the New Market. To secure a competitive advantage, the business itself must become the definitive source of truth. This is why your PMS and CRM are your new primary marketing engines. The CRM is your memory, providing the personalization required for intimate conversation. The PMS is your reality, feeding AI real-time facts instead of unreliable third-party noise.

The winning strategy isn't managing a reputation through "spectacle," but executing an authentic reality. We must shorten the connection between the guest and the information source. In the solitude of private conversation, authenticity—powered by high-integrity operational data—is the only currency that matters.

What is happening isn't a move away from public platforms, but a shift toward chat style interactions that feel more direct and tailored. For many people, this experience feels more reliable than scrolling through crowded social feeds. 

Generative AI is speeding up this shift by turning searches into dialogue — simplifying complex questions and responding to specific needs in ways traditional social platforms can't. For travelers, this makes discovery feel personal again: less scrolling and generic inspiration; more guidance and meaningful responses. 

A traveler planning a short getaway might ask, "Where can I go this weekend that is warm, walkable, and within a two-hour drive?" A chatbot can refine options in real time, match preferences to inventory, and suggest hotels or destinations that fit — all in a single, conversational thread. 

For travel brands, it's not about replacing social media, but being visible when travelers are making decisions. Social media and chatbots each play a different role — one inspires, the other helps travelers take their next step. For advertisers, this shift means being present wherever travelers seek guidance, whether that's discovering ideas on social or asking detailed questions in a chat. 

Social inspires. Chat converts. Connecting both matters. 

I don't believe chatbots are the new social media, but they are certainly taking a predominant place in our lives, similar to that of social media, which continue (and will continue) to suck up a lot of our time!

Influence marketing remains important, as people tend to share less on social media but still want to follow celebrities or content creators in their niche of interest. The social media wall, or newsfeed, is dead and has been dead for quite some time. But people are still active - they just moved away to private conversations, messenger apps, groups, private forums and/or chats.

Where AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or Claude have disrupted our everyday lives is particularly obvious in troubleshooting and peer-recommandation-type groups. I used to interact in various Facebook groups about social media, website audits or digital marketing, for example. Those groups have lost so much steam now that they seem virtually dead. This is, in great part, due to AI-solutions providing quicker, more in-depth responses.

From a marketing perspective, I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive. We can interact with AI bots... and then watch videos on YouTube or TikTok! And vice versa...

I attended the ALIS Conference in January, where ChatGPT and AI search emerged as recurring themes across multiple sessions. The consensus was clear: AI-driven search for travel advice is rising, while the use of traditional general search engines is showing early signs of decline. One study presented at the conference showed that 58% of Millennials use AI for trip research and planning, followed by Gen Z at 45% and Gen X at 39%. Notably, travelers relying on AI tend to have higher household incomes.

Unlike browsing information on social media platforms, users engage with chatbots by asking specific questions to support decision-making. In this sense, chatbots are becoming less like social networks and more like private advisors. This shift fundamentally challenges the logic of influence marketing.

Traditional influence marketing depends on visibility, amplification, and social proof, which will remain relevant until AI fully replaces social media. Influence within a one-to-one AI conversation, however, is quiet, contextual, and largely invisible. Brands are no longer competing only for attention; they are also competing for recommendability within AI platforms. Hospitality marketers must therefore ensure that their data, positioning, and credibility are structured clearly enough to also surface within these private decision journeys.

Public feeds were designed for visibility: maximizing reach, performance, and attention. They reward scale and amplification. In contrast, private conversational spaces, like those enabled by chatbots, are designed for usefulness: relevance, intent, and decision support. As attention shifts to these channels, influence doesn’t disappear it becomes more efficient. Less performative, more consequential.

For influence marketing, this signals not a collapse but a maturation. Today, influence is no longer carried primarily by public display or broad exposure; rather forms inside private moments of consideration. The key metric shifts from impressions and engagement to presence at the point of decision, helping customers resolve uncertainty and make informed choices.

Across hospitality and online commerce, this shift rewards fundamentals. Brands that simplify decisions, clarify trade-offs, and help customers feel confident, outperform those optimized for noise and visibility. Style still matter it shapes perception, but it no longer substitutes for substance or compensates for weak value delivery.

Many legacy influence models relied on passive acceptance rather than active trust. Public feeds allowed messages to persist through repetition and familiarity. In conversational environments, that buffer is gone; and influence must now earn its place by being genuinely helpful.

People are not leaving social media. They are just using different platforms for different phases of their journey. What's changing is where each phase happens.

The dreaming phase still lives on social media. Scrolling, discovering, getting inspired — that works perfectly in feeds, videos, and stories. Social platforms are great for sparking ideas and desire.

But once intent shifts, behavior changes. When I start searching, comparing, or evaluating options, I move to tools that help me think. This is where ChatGPT becomes powerful. It can answer questions, compare choices, explain trade-offs, and help me decide what actually fits my situation.

ChatGPT can combine search, evaluation, and decision-making in one place. For many people, it will become the first interface they go to when intent becomes real.

That matters for brands. If you are not part of those first suggestions when buying intent shifts, your social media content loses impact. Awareness alone is not enough. Influence now depends on showing up at the moment decisions are formed — not just where dreams begin.

Social media—including family, friends and professional creators—remain the most used sources of travel inspiration. Data shows that roughly a third of travelers rely on each of those when planning their trips. OTAs trail slightly behind, used by 25% of travelers, and AI is rising quickly, currently used by 17%. Yes, AI is the fastest growing source (+30% YOY), but creators and social media overall continue to grow rapidly (+17% and +21%, respectively). OTAs also show robust growth (+19%)… Heck, even TV sees some slight growth in driving decisions. 

The reality is that media channels rarely die outright. Instead, guests simply adopt the new alongside where they already get their information. Social is evolving, yes. But it's showing no signs of declining. In fact, social media is a core source of information to chatbots.  

Don't look at chatbots and AI as though they'll replace social media. Think of them instead as an additional source of information that guests value and make sure that your content—website, social media, OTA listings, ratings/reviews, etc.—represents your hotel properly. Then guests will understand why you're the right answer no matter where they choose to find their recommendations.

My take is that users are not abandoning social networks in a black-or-white sense. What they are abandoning within social media is the part of digital life that involves asking, reflecting, learning, and (more interestingly for our industry), deciding, comparing, and buying.

The data support this shift: engagement on Facebook and X has fallen to around 0.15%, and Instagram engagement is down roughly 24% YoY. Feeds, moreover, are saturated and increasingly optimized for reaction rather than intention or action, in other words, CTA.

Influence marketing is feeling the same strain, with multiple industry surveys showing that a majority of users now perceive influencer posts as barely distinguishable from standard advertising.

My take is that conversation-based platforms succeed precisely where feed-based systems have failed: by removing performative pressure, reducing social friction, and creating a space where users can be uncertain, shy, incomplete, or openly wrong (and, therefore, more willing to be suggested hotel X, Y, Z).

So the question is no longer whether chatbots are the new social media, but whether marketing is ready to operate in a world where influence happens quietly, conversationally, and in ways that are far harder to track, attribute, or even deliberately shape.