alt Hacker NewsI have zero comments about the usefulness of AI travel agents. Indeed I tend to agree.
And of course, yes, there are good travel agents and as I described circumstances where they are a useful resource.
But in a world of aggregators and other things, many travel agents are just middle men.
Blaming AI for “destroying another middle class profession” ignores years of decline bringing us here. Might it be the final nail in the coffin? Maybe. But AI can’t really wear the guilt on the demise.
The only reason I lay that sort of blame is that it seems like the person looking for AI to make those decisions is the kind of person that needs a travel agent.
Let’s say 95% of the market moved to self-booking online, the remaining 5% still wants someone else to handle all the details of arranging travel.
So, like you said, AI isn’t to blame for the decline of the market, but I think that for those 5% of people who don’t want to do the booking legwork themselves, AI is now moving into this niche and, in my opinion, it’s going to do a worse job and/or lead to more technofeudalism where a network of local agents is now going to be put out of business in favor of a small handful of global AI travel companies.