A new generative artificial intelligence (AI) travel agent will leverage Google Cloud to help ambitious travelers easily book round-the-world trips with Oneworld member airlines.
The alliance’s Round the World (RTW) fares allow passengers to book up to sixteen flights between at least three continents on a globe-spanning trip that lands back home up to a year later.
But with fifteen Oneworld carriers, hundreds of destinations, millions of possible flights, constantly changing seat availability, and differences in fare rules between carriers, scheduling such a mammoth trip is beyond conventional airline booking engines and daunting for travelers.
Photo: Courtesy of Oneworld
“For Round the World passengers, they are sometimes booking trips of a lifetime,” said Roger Blackburn, Oneworld vice president for Europe. “But they maybe don’t have a great idea how they stitch that into a coherent journey around the world that works on the Oneworld network and comes in at a fare they can afford.”
Around the World with AI
To simplify booking and sell more Round the World tickets, Oneworld turned to Elemental Cognition, an AI startup founded by David Ferrucci, a computer scientist who led the development of IBM’s Watson computer.
Elemental Cognition applied its AI platform, built on Google Cloud infrastructure, to produce a robust booking system for Oneworld—one that handles airline schedules’ complexity and is approachable for travelers.
Photo: Courtesy of Finnair
The tool includes a chatbot that speaks to customers in naturalistic language, asking them about their home city, ideal destination, and desired travel dates. It then produces an itinerary for their trip and flags potential issues, such as lack of seats on certain flights.
If travelers like the itinerary, they can click a single button to be directed to a booking site to finalize their purchase.
“Elemental Cognition impressed us with their ability to decode our complexity,” Blackburn said. “They ingested a year’s worth of global airline schedules and our rules, recorded in various formats, to build a customized solution that our customers could engage with in natural language.”
Oneworld piloted the AI travel agent for 18 months and found it a success. Customers who used it were five times as likely to book an RTW trip.
Photo: Fiji Airways joins oneworld at the IATA AGM. Courtesy of Enrique Perrella
“This collaboration showcases the power of AI and cloud technology to solve real-world challenges and enhance customer experiences in the travel industry,” said Carrie Tharp, Vice President of Global Solutions & Industries at Google Cloud.
In the future, the AI travel agent’s powers could be extended to help travelers book hotels and other transportation in their destination cities.
“There’s complexities around things beyond the airline journey,” Blackburn said. “For us it’s a starting point to try and do some other things, perhaps with what we can offer our passengers.”
