This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Imagine telling your phone that you want a quiet boutique hotel near a city center, below a certain price, with a decent breakfast and late checkout. A few seconds later, an AI assistant compares the options, explains why each one fits and helps complete the booking.
This is no longer hypothetical. In late August this year, Google began rolling out hotel booking through its AI Mode search feature in the U.S. Travelers can describe their preferences conversationally, compare hotels and guest reviews, select a room, check cancellation conditions and complete the booking using Google Pay.
Partners include Booking.com, Expedia, Hilton, Marriott and IHG, the parent company of Holiday Inn. The traveler still confirms the transaction. But that final click can obscure how much of the searching, comparing and decision-making has already been delegated to agentic AI.
Hotels have used chatbots and recommendation systems for years. Most are reactive: A guest asks when breakfast starts, and the chatbot provides the answer. A traveler enters dates and preferences, and a booking site recommends suitable hotels.
These systems can operate with greater autonomy, adapt to changing circumstances and coordinate actions across different systems with less continuous human direction. This distinction is central to research we conducted on agentic AI in hospitality and tourism. We identify five broad roles that such systems could perform, ranging from guest-facing service and itinerary planning to monitoring operations, managing engagement and coordinating multiple systems.
Consider a disrupted holiday. A conventional chatbot might tell you that your flight has been canceled. A more agentic system could identify alternative flights, assess how the delay affects your hotel booking, modify airport transport and rearrange activities while retaining your preferences.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
