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Planning your next holiday might soon feel less like a chore, and more like a conversation, with AI’s entry into the same. From Google Travel to TripAdvisor and Indian platforms like MakeMyTrip, AI is steadily becoming the newest travel companion—helping with everything from itinerary suggestions to real-time flight updates.
Last year, United Airlines turned to AI models to provide timely and accurate information about flight disruptions, delays to flyers. Recently, MakeMyTrip launched Myra, a generative AI assistant that guides travellers from choosing destinations to book their journey.
Booking travel with AI
According to MakeMyTrip, its AI agent Myra, goes beyond suggestions and lets users move from query to confirmed booking in a single conversation.
When Mint asked the AI about travelling from Delhi to Rameshwaram, it indeed mapped a combined route combining flights, trains – complete with options for each mode of transport.
But when Myra was asked to provide the most scenic route for the same journey, it suggested a route covering 10 stops including Mount Abu, Nagpur, Hyderabad among others – which overall, might turn out to be taxing for many travellers.
As per majority travel experts, flying to Madurai, and then continuing to Rameshwaram via train or a car, offers the most scenic part of the journey – particularly the bridge crossing the Palk Strait, which offers stunning views of the water and the Pamban Bridge.
Only when it was specified further on “what can be the most scenic route to take to Rameshwaram,” after “reaching Madurai via flight,” Myra suggested to take a bus.
“Myra is built on a network of specialized AI agents across all major travel categories, flights, accommodation, holidays, ground transport, visas, and forex and supports multimodal input (text, voice, image, video), continuous back-and-forth dialogue, itinerary edits, and post-sales support, all within the same interface. The Beta version of Myra is live in English and Hindi, with plans to expand to multiple Indian languages, after fine tuning conversation flows based on early user feedback,” Sanjay Mohan, Group CTO, MakeMyTrip told Mint.
What travellers say
According to a survey conducted by Local Circles, 60 per cent of travellers who book their travel online are likely to use AI for travel search and bookings; getting authentic ratings and using AI agents to construct itineraries and book upon approval to be top use cases.
For the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, a report by Skyscanner showed that 46 per cent of the travellers had expressed confidence in using AI tools to assist with travel planning and booking.
Human touch missing?
While AI is useful for quick suggestions and recommendations, it still lacks the depth of understanding personal preferences that a human travel agent or local expert can offer — especially when it comes to nuanced, on-the-ground insights. For instance, if you are looking for suggestions for Trekking in Himachal – AI would certainly suggest Triund trek – which is usually over crowded. However, someone who’s familiar with the place may suggest an alternate, like Kareri Lake trek which is comparatively less crowded.
Speaking about the expansion of AI in travel, travel company Cox and Kings’ director Karan Agarwal told Mint that AI can “certainly make journeys more seamless”, helping with quick itinerary suggestions. He, however, also focused that “the human touch whether through an advisor who understands your ( a person’s) preferences, or through the lived experience of engaging with a culture remains irreplaceable.”
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