Duff on Hospitality Law

Good Sunday afternoon from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, December 12, 2025, is below. This week’s Update includes a number of updates to stories we featured previously, including stories on the existential threat (or not) to OTAs posed by new AI platforms and the Trump administration’s threatened takeover of state-level AI regulation (no longer a threat, but a reality). Enjoy.

• • Do AI Platforms Really Pose an Existential Threat to OTAs? This week we offer several conflicting perspectives on the question from Booking Holdings’ CFO (who believes, among other things, that AI will expand the overall market of online travel benefiting Booking Holdings and other online intermediaries (“rising tides”)) and Skift’s Dennis Schaal (who, I believe has a far more realistic and less vested perspective, believes that change for the OTAs is unavoidable).
  • Google Ties AI Overviews with AI Mode. For those of you who have seen my presentation on AI and distribution, you’ll understand the significance with which I viewed this latest announcement from Google. Mobile users of Google’s AI Overviews (which is just about everyone) will now be able to seamlessly transition from AI Overviews to AI Mode for further detail or clarification on their initial query. Users of AI Overviews will be able to “Ask a follow up,” which will take them directly into AI Mode. Together, this latest announcement and Google’s previously announced plans to position its AI mode as a complete travel planning and booking platform will only further threaten the relevancy of traditional online search.
  • Amazon vs. Perplexity. In early November, Amazon filed suit against Perplexity in Northern California District Court alleging that the AI platform’s use of AI agents (Comet AI Agents) on Amazon’s website not only violates Amazon’s terms and conditions but also constitutes violations of federal (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) and California state (California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act) law. Amazon seeks both special (injunction) and monetary (damages) relief. How might such a lawsuit (or its outcome) affect online travel? Great question. We see many potential parallels to be drawn and potential lessons to be learned. For anyone concerned about how AI agents might access and use their websites, I’d encourage you to read the complaint and specifically, those sections detailing Amazon’s efforts to restrict AI agents’ access. Expect to see updates on Amazon’s claim in future Online Travel Updates. A copy of Amazon’s complaint is linked below.
  • OpenAI Curtails App Suggestions – For Now. By now, most everyone is probably familiar with the recent launch of apps (including Expedia and Booking.com) within ChatGPT’s ecosystem. Not only can users “summon” these apps through various means, but the apps can also be offered up by ChatGPT whenever ChatGPT believes that the app may be relevant to the user’s prompts. Apparently, these app suggests look strikingly similar to advertisements and as a result have created quite a backlash among ChapGPT users (who naively believe that ChatGPT will remain forever ad free). For now, OpenAI is turning off the app suggestions and may even allow users to permanently turn off app suggestions (or at least tailor which apps are suggested) in the future.

We have a lot in store for 2026, including the introduction of a new Online Trave Update podcast.

Have a great week everyone.