Expedia opened a nearly 50,000-square-foot San Jose engineering hub to compete for the engineers who can turn its AI ambitions into working products. On a tour of the facility, the company made the pitch clear: Travel's complexity is interesting enough to lure people over — and it’s paying Silicon Valley premiums to fill those seats.

But the cost of failure looks steep. Scarce technical talent may now be a bottleneck, executives told Skift. Meanwhile, nearby, Google just bought Spirit’s enterprise data and software code. While travel companies chase Big Tech’s people, Big Tech is shopping for travel data.

Skift Global Forum

The agentic layer is being built now, and travel's largest companies are deciding whether they own the customer or rent access to them.

This year's speakers include OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor on travel's agentic horizon, Airbnb's Brian Chesky on rebuilding as an AI-native company, and the CEOs of Booking Holdings, Expedia, and Hilton. Roundtables run from AI pilot to production, where it actually delivers ROI.

Buy Now, Pay Later Moves Beyond Checkout

CLARITYPAY + SKIFT

JetBlue’s ClarityPay partnership shows how financing can support loyalty, personalization, and higher-value travel purchases.

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EDITOR’S PICKS

Inside Expedia’s Silicon Valley Bid for AI Talent

August 14, 2026

Expedia is taking its AI recruitment fight to the heart of Silicon Valley, with a new San Jose hub for AI and engineering just a 10-minute drive from the Googleplex. But can it court tech and AI talent away from Big Tech? Here's the pitch.

Google Scoops Up Spirit Airlines’ Data in Bankruptcy Sale to Train AI

August 17, 2026

Google plans to use troves of Spirit’s business data and software code to improve its own AI models and products.

The AI Agent Should Belong to the Traveler

August 12, 2026

Every previous layer of travel distribution promised to work for the traveler, and every one ended up selling position to the supplier.

Accor’s Fix for Corporate Travel’s Most Tedious Ritual: Rates That Don’t Vanish

August 13, 2026

Hotel groups and corporate clients burn months every year haggling over room rates that often fail to show up when employees actually book. Accor is leaning on automation to help fix this.

While Rivals Cut Fees, IHG Takes a Different Route on Owner Economics

August 11, 2026

Fee cuts are the story of this earnings season. IHG has a different answer and a different argument for why it doesn’t need to follow peer pressure.

SKIFT PODCAST NETWORK

You can now open Google Maps, describe the hotel you want in plain language, and get real availability and pricing back in the same conversation.

In this clip from Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast: Hotels Edition, Sarah Dandashy and Steve Turk break down what Google's new agentic AI feature inside Maps actually does, what happened when Steve tested it live asking for the best hotel in Miami Beach, and why this is a bigger threat to OTAs than most people are treating it as right now.

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SKIFT RESEARCH

How are public travel tech companies performing around the world? The Skift Travel 200 pulls the data you need to know to understand the market. Paid subscribers get full access here.

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🧠 Expedia’s Silicon Valley Play