Exclusive: should we believe the AI takeover hype?
From personalised itineraries to making individual holiday arrangements – AI can supposedly do everything without a human agent needing to be part of the process. However, what’s the truth behind the predictions? Adido CEO Andy Headington investigates
We are encouraged to believe the way travellers book a holiday is going to change forever and if you’re not on board, you risk being seen as behind the times – and perhaps worse, you risk becoming obsolete.
But now, perhaps more than ever, people are starting to wonder if AI’s role in travel is quite the game-changer it’s being made out to be.
The evolution of AI has been nothing short of astonishing. Along with the internet, it is undoubtedly one of the most incredible technological advancements we’ve seen.
Yet, when I hear sweeping declarations about AI changing how we book travel forever, or the booking process becoming ‘unrecognisable in five years’ time’ as one speaker at this year’s Phocuswright conference proclaimed, a little voice in my head whispers ‘yeah right –try telling my mum that’.
AI tech companies are coming under increased scrutiny, with two recent examples including the BBC threatening AI firm Perplexity with legal action over unauthorised content use and Disney and Universal suing Midjourney for copyright infringement.
This all suggests to me that the travel operators and agents should navigate the choppy waters of AI adoption with extreme caution. There’s a reason why the likes of Travel Counsellors are thriving – people value the human touch. AI can’t tell you what it feels like to cruise the globe, experiencing the sights, tastes and smells of various destinations, for example.
Nevertheless, the fervour around AI in travel refuses to die down.
How do we make sense of all this? Luckily, there’s a well-established model we can refer to – the Gartner Hype Cycle, which was developed by US research and advisory firm Gartner in 1995 to represent the peaks and troughs of specific technologies.
It consists of five stages: technology trigger – an innovation that sparks excitement; peak of inflated expectations – success stories are well publicised while failures are overlooked; trough of disillusionment – interest wanes as people realise the tech isn’t as game-changing as they thought; slope of enlightenment – acceptance of the tech’s flaws; and and plateau of productivity – adoption hits the mainstream and becomes commonplace.
Since late 2022, AI’s journey has mirrored the Hype Cycle almost step for step. Tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews, it was said, would bypass websites entirely, understand a user’s intent, suggest hotels, compare flights and do it all with zero hitches. Except, it hasn’t all been plain sailing.
Google rolled out Bard (now Gemini), then promptly rolled it back in again when the glitches started piling up. Bing Chat (now Copilot) didn’t fare much better. It became obvious that while the technology looked promising, it wasn’t yet ready for full scale adoption across all industries. Cue the trough of disillusionment phase.
That said, this was happening in 2023 – and two years are like 10 in tech terms. It’s fair to say there are far fewer glitches nowadays and the technology has undoubtedly come on leaps and bounds.
Where people feel they are on the Hype Cycle is going to be dependent on the changes that have been made in their respective companies.
Generally, I think we have reached the plateau of productivity stage. Many brands are using AI to some extent, be that booking systems, marketing content or customer service support.
Consumers, and even some travel businesses, may not even realise it’s there, and that’s the point. The technology works best when it’s invisible – a behind-the-scenes entity, allowing travel agents and account managers to focus on building relationships with their clients.
While the tech is now more capable and reliable, there’s a sense that things are no longer moving at breakneck speed. What it all boils down to is that AI is not going anywhere – it’s part of the furniture. However, in my opinion travel will always remain a people business, certainly when it comes to the big trips where more is at stake. The safest pair of hands will always be human.
Andy Headington is CEO of Adido
