An AI newcomer called Instinct drew Silicon Valley buzz by doing what travel AI has promised for years: booking, monitoring fares, and rebooking with little user effort. Just a few text messages was all it took.
Travel friction keeps showing up elsewhere. A Chinese study of travel queries found some destinations vanished from AI recommendations depending on how the question was phrased. Amadeus is building Claude tools around documentation, authentication, connectivity, and content. Travel AI is maturing. Instinct showed the value of hiding the machinery. Now the harder test is whether that simplicity can be reliable.
Skift Data + AI Summit Europe
The AI questions your team is stuck on get answered by the people already shipping it: 250 senior travel executives, one day in London, October 6.
Hear how AI actually gets built and run in Europe from the CTOs and AI leads at KAYAK, International Airlines Group, Skyscanner, Amadeus, and Travelport, in a room capped to stay operator-heavy.
CURACITY + SKIFT
At Skift Data + AI Summit 2026, travel leaders shared how AI is moving from pilots to production, with data, ownership, and trust emerging as the biggest differentiators.
EDITOR’S PICKS
Skift Global Forum Preview: Amadeus’s President of Travel on Why the Traveler, Not the Platform, Should Hold the Controls
September 2, 2026
Decius Valmorbida thinks the industry competes too hard on closed ecosystems and cooperates too little on the plumbing. His bet: open, shared foundations grow the pie for everyone. We'll test whether rivals actually build them together at Skift Global Forum this September.
SKIFT PODCAST NETWORK
AI-generated hotel videos are starting to appear on TikTok Go, and some are showing travelers amenities that do not actually exist.
Sarah Kopit and Seth Borko explain why this creates a major trust problem for hotels, creators, platforms, and travelers — especially when fake content can still shape expectations before a guest ever arrives.
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.
