Travel brands raced to get apps into AI chatbots, so Skift wanted to see how they work inside ChatGPT and Claude. The test, which covers Booking.com, Expedia, and Viator connectors on both platforms, reveals an unnerving glitch: A known bug triggers one of these bots to bypass requested apps — and hallucinate a believable technical excuse for it. The experience underscores something crucial: Being available in an AI chat isn't the same as being surfaced by one.

In other news, hospitality tech firm Mews cut 15% of its staff, in its deepest restructuring since the pandemic. In an exclusive interview with Skift, Founder Richard Valtr cites AI as the cause: Some roles were built for an old era that no longer exist, with one worker or team capable of owning what functional teams once passed between them. AI proficiency is like spreadsheet fluency. Table stakes. Apparently the tool everyone is told to learn is now doing the cutting. 

WORDLY + SKIFT

When attendees gather at Skift Global Forum, they rely on Wordly to make conversation possible. Get a closer look at how the AI-powered translation and captioning technology is revolutionizing live experiences for global audiences.

Three years ago the first AI model dropped. One year ago agentic search was in the single digits. Today it accounts for more than half of all searches.

In this clip from Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Michael Goldin, Brandreth Canaley, and Wil Slickers, break down what that speed of change actually means for travel distribution. OTAs have spent billions dominating Google SEO and SEM. They are the incumbents and they are in pole position. But the window between now and when they fully adapt is a real opportunity for individual operators, management companies, and hotels to get found through agentic search first and cut the middleman out entirely.

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.