Expedia Group and Kayak are the first travel brands to create plugins for ChatGPT
Expedia Group recently unveiled a new plugin in collaboration with OpenAI to simplify trip planning for ChatGPT users. The goal of the plugin is simple – until now, ChatGPT could suggest places to stay and things to see, but it couldn’t help users book.
This makes Expedia Group, and Kayak, the first travel brands to create plugins specifically for ChatGPT, experimenting with its capabilities not only as a chatbot and potential search engine, but a platform that enables retail as well.
OpenAI’s recently updated blog post about its plugins initiative spells out the purpose of opening up the platform pretty clearly:
“We’re beginning to extend ChatGPT’s capabilities by teaching it to use plugins. You can think of plugins as “tools” that the model can learn how to use — imagine a plugin for checking the news, a plugin for booking flights, or a plugin for retrieving information from a proprietary database. Developers have been asking for plugins since we launched ChatGPT because they unlock a vast range of possible use cases.”
Expedia’s new plugin, once enabled through a conceptual ChatGPT app store of sorts, will connect users to Expedia Group’s library of travel data. Then once they’re ready to book, they’ll be sent to Expedia to finalise the purchase.
“We’re always experimenting with new technologies and when it became clear that there was a great use case for starting to plan a trip through a conversation with ChatGPT, we were all in,” said Rathi Muthy, CTO, Expedia Group.
In terms of usage expectations, response, and customer adoption, Rathi says the team is still working through those details with OpenAI. It’s understandable, considering all of this is pretty new.
When asked about the difference in using a tool like ChatGPT versus a search engine, Rathi replied, “For us, any advancements that make the search space a fairer playing field is positive as it gives travelers more ways to start planning for their next dream trip.
“What a large language model like ChatGPT does is enable a traveler to plan their next trip by simply starting a conversation. ChatGPT uses AI to understand the intent of the person during a conversation and responds with data in a very conversational way. With the Expedia plugin, the traveler will now have access to up-to-date information on the availability and price of flights, hotels, vacation rentals, activities, and car rentals across the world during that conversation.”
It’s important to highlight the term “up-to-date” because that was one of ChatGPT’s few limitations. The standard version that’s available for public access has a knowledge base that ends in 2021. Any plugin that gives the bot access to current data, without having to use much of GPT’s own resources, essentially overrides those limitations and solves an essential pain point in OpenAI’s current model.
Speaking of limitations, Rathi adds that, “Generative AI is a new technology so we’re testing and learning as we go. One limitation with ChatGPT is that it’s unpredictable – this makes the technology incredibly exciting but also difficult to test! As we learn more about how our travelers interact with ChatGPT, we’ll be able to test and refine our plugin to bring more accurate results to them every time.”
As new as Expedia’s ChatGPT plugin is, the company has been utilising Artificial Intelligence for some time now, so it’s not a new tool. In their own words, AI has transformed Expedia Group from an online travel agency to a technology platform powering travel.
Some noteworthy mentions include their AI Virtual Agent, which has powered more than 30M+ virtual conversations, saving 8M hours in agent time. There’s also fraud prevention, in which AI flags suspicious activity when behavior patterns deviate from the norm, allowing us to intervene before fraud or abuse occurs.
When asked what companies should keep in mind when experimenting with ChatGPT, or embarking on their own AI adoption journeys, Rathi said, “AI is not a new technology for us, we’ve been using AI/ ML for years to take the complexity out of the planning, shopping, booking and post-booking experience for travelers.”
“It’s important for travelers to trust that all the details of their booking will be right. Travel companies need to know when to take a chance on the open-ended conversational experience of ChatGPT and when it might be too much of a risk. If a traveler is booking a flight and their name or date of birth is wrong, it will have negative implications for them. Travel companies looking to integrate ChatGPT into their platform need to consider these potential risks and how to solve them.”
