Personalizing travel at scale with OpenAI

As one of the world’s largest travel marketplaces, Booking.com makes it easier for millions of travelers to experience the world, offering seamless access to flights, stays, and activities in one place.

With OpenAI, the company saw an opportunity to become a true travel companion, addressing the discovery phase to help travelers uncover destinations and experiences they didn’t even know they wanted.

“When ChatGPT launched in 2022, I got this tingle,” says Adrienne Enggist, Senior Director of Product Marketplace at Booking.com. “It reminded me of the early days of broadband access—this massive opportunity to change how people engage with travel. We knew this could help us finally crack the discovery challenge.”

To date, Booking.com has launched multiple AI-powered solutions with OpenAI to make travel planning easier and more intuitive.

Scoping a solution for discovery and intent

Booking.com had been using machine learning for over a decade, but traditional models and rule-based systems struggled to capture the nuances of user intent - especially in the early discovery phase.

“You might want to go on a romantic getaway, but make it cheesy,” says Rob Francis, Booking.com’s CTO. “There’s no filter for heart-shaped beds or Elvis impersonators. Traditional search just wasn’t built to unlock that kind of intent.”

Although the platform offered hundreds of filters, they were only helpful if travelers knew exactly what to look for. The rise of large language models presented a new opportunity to move to a more conversational, discovery-driven experience.

“We’ve always been really good at the last mile - getting people from search to booking,” says Enggist. “But discovery was different. We needed a way to meet customers earlier in the process, when they were still figuring out what they wanted.”

Building the AI Trip Planner in weeks

Booking.com quickly assembled a task force to bring the AI Trip Planner to life: