alt Hacker NewsHow many people really want an AI agent to book their flights? I like AI and travel a lot, but I don't see that as being an ideal agentic tasks. In most cases, I prefer using google flights or expedia and looking at the options in a UI that is tailored to the task. Of course AI can be useful if you want to inquire about certain details or find more information.
It's funny how many AI tool demos have used flight booking as an example task. I always groan at that. I just don't think that will be the way most people book flights. Maybe the 1%ers or less. Are you you currently doing this?
Replies
From someone who's worked in the business travel industry - more than you think. Business travelers are a disproportionate amount of airline revenue (possibly over 50%+ of revenue while being around 10-20% of passengers). Those who are doing the same trip over and over again probably don't care, but salespeople who are doing different trips every week get some value out of this kind of thing. There have been piles of startups trying to solve this (and failing).
There's not a ton of money in skimming commissions off of flights (probably < 1%), but there is if you can attach a hotel booking to it (upwards of 10%), so if you can become the preferred vendor for a business traveler, there's money to be made.
Hmm I definitely think having an ai agent find me a flight is something useful because it’s very difficult to compare flights, there’s intentionally a lot of friction. The way I’d use it is search for a flight myself and have it search independently. If I find a cheaper flight that suits my exact needs then ask it to beat it. Whoever finds the best flight, that’s the one I book. I’ll repeat that, that’s the one I book.
Unless you have money to throw away I can’t imagine not checking the details and comparing prices. Hell, even if you do have money to throw away you still want to double check everything just before the last purchase decision. Is it going to the right city? Is it at a reasonable hour? Is baggage included or purchased? Etc
I definitely do. Astrophotography is a hobby of mine and I've been working on a kind of personal app to find me locations in the US that will yield good shots. The variables are moon phase (close to new as possible), weather, cloud cover, humidity, and plane ticket/car rental prices. All things considered, if it's all the same in nevada, new mexico, and utah for a given week, I want to find the cheapest flight to any airport in that area. It's a huge pain in the ass to trawl through all the different flights/airports/dates to minimize my spend.
I would like to be able to have an AI agent book my flight. Airline websites are often horrible to use and it's annoying having to fill out all the details. On more than one occasion I've had to book through a third party or choose a different flight because the airline's website was broken and I couldn't complete the transaction.
Google flights is great and I use it every time I want to fly, but it's very rare that you can purchase the actual flight on google flights too.
Booking a flight is a typical task some big wig will ask their company or secretary. I think that's why all these demo focus on it.
At this point so much hot tech stuff is incredibly weird niche things to solve the rare problems of overscheduled Silicon Valley tech VPs. They're not real problems that regular people have.
The important distinction here is that the AI is not "autonomously going out of its way to book flights" or whatever you have in mind.
I want to ask the AI to search for flights to my next trip, with x y z restrictions. It shows me the flights and gives me options A B and C. I tap B and it goes and books it for me. That's no different than a traditional experience like Kayak except that instead of pressing "book now" and manually filling in the details (or rather: these days letting safari autofill) I press the "LGTM" button and software fills in the rest.
ETA: the shopping experience is the same. I don't want my muse (or whichever) agent to "autonomously" "decide" to purchase an item for me that I've mentioned off hand at some point in time. The use case is treating muse as an addition/alternative to the traditional search experience.
"hey muse I want to buy a new tv, what are the popular/good models from 2025+ with reviews from reputable websites? Shortlist me ~3 within x-y budget also ensure that the local Best Buy or Costco has it in stock so I can pick it up. Actually also let me know if the box will fit in my Toyota or if I need to rent a van. Also for each positive review find me a negative review to balance it out."
And then after I do my own reading on what it surfaced me, I just say "ok muse place an order for the top option, schedule a pickup time for Saturday"