AI in Travel: Building Momentum From AI-Curious to AI-Native

Answers to questions like how do companies envision leaning into AI and how can it disrupt business will determine what initiatives the travel industry gets behind.

How can travel companies get started in AI - and make it core to how they operate? And how can they implement it and not lose sight of the need for an actual return on their investment?

We shared answers to these questions and more at Skift Data + AI Summit last month in New York, and go more in depth below.

First, the highlights:

Bootstrap Your AI Culture: Clarity Over Everything Else. Encourage a culture of risk-taking and experimentation so that the teams engage early with AI. Build upon momentum with targeted and meaningful initiatives. Celebrate innovative ideas regardless of where they come from. Encourage a culture of risk-taking and experimentation so that the teams engage early with AI.

Plan on AI Implementation to require investment and get complex over time: Utilize the AI Implementation building blocks as a practical list of areas of focus and investment. Understand the building blocks needed for a practical ecosystem that enables AI solutions. Pick the parts you own and choose long-term partners for the rest. Know your risk profile and understand what it will take to make AI initiatives successful and generally available.

AI is the leveler of where innovation comes from, so build your AI enablement function: Commit the core team to enable a larger team instead of putting pressure on one team to innovate. Emphasize that success is shared across the organization. Organize the core team in a manner that best works for your organization: central, federated, or hybrid.

Do not over-index on traditional measures of ROI: AI unlocks many categories for positive ROI but requires investments to level up. Start with what you know - improve that, but in parallel, focus on leveling up your tech ecosystem AND your teams. Investing in your AI ecosystem and early initiatives is going to set the tone for generational transformation. Any short-term gains or setbacks are not indicative of long-term transformation.

Build a culture of experimentation: Recognize that truly embracing AI requires a ground-up transformation of your existing infrastructure. The level of transformation is determined by your data readiness, risk/error tolerance level, and ROI potential, among other things. This is an opportunity to completely reimagine your stack, with investment in AI lit