Duff on Hospitality Law

Good Monday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, October 24, 2025, is below. This week’s Update introduces readers to ChatGPT’s new browser, ChatGPT Atlas (and its new Agent Mode), and offers varying views on ChatGPT’s (and similar AI powered platforms’) long term effect on travel, the future role, if any, for today’s travel intermediaries and when/how the industry should respond. I hope you enjoy.

• • Should Suppliers Race to Make Inventory Available on ChatGPT? That’s the million dollar question. Faced with successive announcements from OpenAI over the past few weeks, including, the recent introduction of new ChatGPT travel apps from Expedia and Booking.com, hoteliers, short term rental companies and other travel suppliers face a dilemma. Do they push ahead now to do anything possible to ensure their inventory is available in some form on these new platforms or do they wait? Does waiting give early adopters (OTAs) even more of an insurmountable advantage? For some, like Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, the answer appears to be to wait (at least for now). Others are convinced that suppliers must move now, and companies like Direct Booker seek to provide suppliers the tools to do so.
  • Can ChatGPT and Others Like It Reduce the Travel Industry’s Dependence on Today’s Powerful Intermediaries? Or will these platforms only serve to cement intermediaries’ already outsized control and influence? (I’m full of questions this week.) Answers to these important questions also vary, but I tend to believe (as does Brian Chesky and the author of one of our stories below) that OTAs are too large (and too smart) to be displaced by these new AI platforms and if anyone is well positioned to leverage the platforms to their benefit, the OTAs are. Search has not displaced the OTAs (and in fact, the largest search engines and OTAs have a well-documented symbiotic relationship), so why should these new tools, particularly as they become more commercialized.
  • Introducing ChatGPT Atlas. On the heels of ChatGPT’s announcement of its new app store, ChatGPT introduced this past week a new web browser, ChatGPT Atlas, that allows users to use natural language searches to browse the internet. Users can also use the browser to complete certain tasks on the user’s behalf through the browser’s new feature, Agent Mode. Of course, OpenAI’s video demonstration of the new product featured (once again) a travel application as ChatGPT’s lead software designer for the project demonstrated the new agent tool being used to complete bookings on Air France. The introductory demonstration and other travel examples (one using Expedia’s VRBO platform) are available in the stories below. Atlas is now available in preview for ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Business users.

Have a great week everyone.

Good Saturday morning from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, October 17, 2025, is below. Compared to last week and its seemingly endless parade of announcements around AI and online travel, this week’s unexpected shortage of announcements provided many of us the opportunity to catch our breath and to consider further the many changes over the past few weeks. I hope you enjoy.

• • Kayak Debuts Natural Language Searches.  This past week, Kayak officially debuted its latest AI offering, AI Mode.  AI Mode allows users of the metasearch site to use natural language prompts to plan and search a variety of travel products and services.  The new functionality is powered by ChatGPT and leverages the data of Kayak’s many travel providers.  This new offering is in addition to Kayak’s separate Kayak.ai site, which remains a platform for continued AI experimentation and testing by Kayak.

• • Google Proposes New Changes to Search Results (Again) to Satisfy EU Regulators.  According to a recent report from Reuters, Google is again proposing changes to its display of search results in its ongoing effort to satisfy its obligations under the DMA.  This newest proposal reportedly provides OTAs and similar “vertical search services” the opportunity to bid on and display search results box alongside Google’s own search box.  Boxes will feature Google’s and the winning OTA’s available inventory.  Suppliers will have the opportunity to display their own box, the location of which, according to the Reuters report, will be above or below the vertical search services box “depending on the relevance to the user’s query.”

Have a great week everyone.

Good Sunday morning from Seattle (actually, about 180 miles south of Seattle at one of Marriott’s new Post Card Cabins in Glennwood, Washington) . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, October 10, 2025, is below. This week’s OTU includes recent product updates from both Expedia Group (Hotels.com) and Booking Holdings (Booking.com) as well as several perspectives on the major “app” announcement that came out of last week’s OpenAI Development Conference. Enjoy.

• • Hotels.com Introduces New “Immediate” Loyalty Program Feature. Expedia Group’s Hotels.com has introduced a new loyalty feature (Save Your Way) that allows members of Expedia Group’s loyalty program, One Key, to use loyalty program discounts immediately when booking on Hotels.com or redeem them later for a booking on Hotels.com, Expedia or VRBO. Hotels.com claims that the feature is a first of its kind. According to Expedia, early results suggest that the new feature is proving most popular among business travelers who elect to use the discount immediately. Here’s my immediate reaction . . . This is simply rate discounting, and for many suppliers, unauthorized rate discounting. Bigger picture, will this new discount appear on search and meta search site results? If yes, how do suppliers handle the resulting parity fall out? Finally, how are competing intermediaries likely to react to this new feature? Time to check those contracts everyone.

• • Both Expedia and Booking.com Introduce New AI Powered Features. Both Expedia and Booking.com introduced last week a suite of new AI features for both travelers and the platforms’ supplier partners. Among its many announced new features, Booking.com has introduced Smart Messenger and Auto Reply to “improve” communications between suppliers and their guests.  Expedia has announced Lodging Sponsored Listings API, a new advertising tool for Expedia’s B2B partners.   

• • OpenAI Partners with Expedia and Booking.com to Launch ChatGPT Apps. The big announcement in online travel last week came out of OpenAI’s annual development conference on Monday. ChatGPT has become an app “platform” open to third party developers. As part of the announcement, Expedia and Booking.com both announced new ChatGPT apps (with a TripAdvisor app soon to follow) that allow users of the AI platform to browse, select and ultimately book accommodations on the ChatGPT platform. (As we have noted in prior Updates, the inability to actually book travel without leaving a chosen AI platform has been noted in several studies as a source of frustration for AI users generally) To access the OTAs’ content, users must first type in the name of the app (e.g., “Expedia” or “Booking.com”) into their prompt or, and this where things get really interesting, the platform will suggest an app that the platform believes is most responsive to users’ prompt if no app is specified. Connectivity between ChatGPT and the OTAs is provided via Model Context Protocol (MCP). The offerings are currently available to ChatGPT users (Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans) outside the EU. Industry reactions to the announcement have been mixed – from wild hysteria to shoulder shrugs. From my perspective, the need to summon the app in advance is definitely a drawback (and likely means that the announcement is not the game changer that many initially thought it might be). The scary factor here is the fact that ChatGPT will choose between the competing apps in the absence of a specific summons. How does ChatGPT choose between the competing apps? Will ChatGPT eventually monetize this choice (e.g., whomever pays ChatGPT the most)? Are the two (soon to be three) apps the only sources of content to respond to users’ prompts? Our friends at Seattle’s own Geekwire offer an interesting perspective on the announcement and the potentially perilous position that Expedia now finds itself.

• • Perplexity Launches Comet with Expedia. Also last week, AI platform Perplexity (as I’ve noted, one of the most interesting AI platforms for the travel industry) announced the launch of a new AI browser and AI assistant, Comet. Expedia Group joined the launch as one of the browser’s initial launch partners and is offering a first-of-its-kind incentive (Silver status on Expedia’s One Key loyalty program) to travelers to download the new browser. Users of the new browser and assistant will also be able to search, select and book travel without leaving the Perplexity platform (which is consistent with Perplexity’s earlier announced partnerships with TripAdvisor and Selfbook).

• • Questioning Airbnb’s Sincere Interest in Hotels? Recently posted job openings suggest that you might want to think otherwise. For those of you have been part of my recent AI and distribution presentations, Airbnb is one of the platforms I’m watching most closely in the months ahead. 

Have a great week everyone.

Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, October 3, 2025, is below. Artificial intelligence again generated most of this past week’s headlines (many of which coming out of the recent Destination AI Forum in Washington, D.C.), but social media also made a strong showing. Finally, Seattle’s own AI conference (which wasn’t focused on travel) also featured an interesting announcement. Enjoy.

• • ChatGPT Announces Agentic Commerce. This past week, Seattle (and Madrona Venture Group, where Steve Singh serves as a Managing Director) hosted the IA Summit 2025, an “exclusive gathering of AI founders, researchers and leaders.” OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, spoke on a variety of topics, including the AI platform’s plans for e-commerce and its recent integration with payment platform Stripe. Below are a few highlights from the recent announcement. It’s not a stretch to think that this new tool will soon be made available for travel, underscoring the need for hoteliers to formulate their AI strategy NOW. While recent studies have underscored travelers’ frustration with AI platforms’ inability to support bookings on their platforms without the need to switch applications, last week’s announcement shows that at least one prominent AI platform may be a lot closer to solving that problem.

"More than 700 million people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, including finding products they love. Starting today, we’re taking the first steps toward ChatGPT helping people buy them too—beginning with Instant Checkout, powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol, built with Stripe."

"U.S. ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Free users can now buy directly from U.S. Etsy sellers right in chat, with over a million Shopify merchants, like Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx and Vuori, coming soon. Today, Instant Checkout supports single-item purchases. Next, we’ll add multi-item carts and expand merchants and regions."

• • Agoda Launches New Social Media Program – Agoda Ambassadors. Think that we’ve seen the height of influencers’ influence over the industry? Think again. Agoda announced this past week a new program (Agoda Ambassadors) that pays an influencer a commission whenever a traveler books on the Agoda website using a unique promotion code given the influencer. Other features of the new program include new sponsored stays and activities for influencers and marketing campaigns featuring the influencers. Time to re-examine those Agoda contracts?
  • How Are Hoteliers Using AI Today? Two recent studies and speakers at last week’s Destination AI Forum seek to provide some preliminary answers. See the stories below.
  • Airbnb’s Loyalty Play. All signs point to the short term rental (and soon hotel) booking platform’s introduction of a new loyalty program. What this program will ultimately look like is unknown, but industry analysts believe it will look much more like a membership or subscription program (e.g., Amazon’s Prime program) versus a traditional (“transactional”) program (e.g., Marriott’s Bonvoy program).
  • Capital One Travel Hires Industry Veteran. Early last month, Capital One Travel brought on Sarah Kaplan Moore to lead the credit card company’s travel program as the Head of Capital One Travel. Moore joins Capital One after roles with Agoda’s Rocket Travel, Expedia and Vivid Seats. What Moore’s addition might mean for the company’s existing travel partnerships, including its long-standing supplier (and investor) relationship with Hopper is unclear (Moore has indicated that she’s open to all forms of partnerships). Add to this uncertainty the effect of Capital One’s recent acquisition of Discover Financial Services and its 300 million global cardholders.
  • Tik Tok Announces Additional Travel Ad Products. Only weeks after its newly announced partnership with Booking.com, Tik Tok has introduced a new advertising solution targeting the travel industry – Travel Ads by Smart+. The Travel Ads program connects users of the social media platform to hotel, destination, flight and cruise promotions while exploring travel related content on the platform. Travel industry members, including Accor, Melia and Expedia, have already participated in program tests. Advertisers seeking to use the program can choose among three options – single videos, catalog videos or catalog carousels.

Have a great week.