Key Takeaways
- Expedia introduces ‘Romie,’ an AI travel assistant, enhancing trip personalization.
- Romie’s features include smart search, itinerary building, and dynamic assistance.
- Romie learns user preferences, offering tailored recommendations and real-time updates.
At its annual EXPLORE partner conference, Expedia Group announced a suite of over 40 new AI-powered products and features aimed at transforming the travel experience. Chief among these innovations is ‘Romie’ – the travel industry’s first artificial intelligence virtual travel assistant.
Romie is designed to be an AI companion that assists travelers through every stage of their journey – from planning and booking to real-time support during the trip itself. The virtual assistant utilizes advanced AI capabilities to provide highly personalized recommendations and assistance tailored to each user’s preferences and needs.
“At Expedia Group, we embrace the transformative power of AI to create personalized travel experiences,” stated Ariane Gorin, CEO of Expedia Group. “Romie demonstrates our commitment to delivering innovative products that enhance how people explore the world.”
Some of Romie’s key features include:
- Group Chat Trip Planning – Romie can integrate into SMS group chats, allowing users to get travel suggestions by simply using the @Romie mention.
- Smart Search – Romie summarizes group chat discussions to provide tailored hotel and experience suggestions when users search on Expedia’s platforms.
- Itinerary Building – Acting as a virtual concierge, Romie compiles travel emails and proactively suggests relevant restaurants, activities and more to create a personalized itinerary.
- Dynamic Assistance – Romie monitors for travel disruptions like weather changes and provides alternative options to adapt itineraries in real-time.
- Intelligent Updates – Changes to plans are automatically shared with the group chat, keeping all travelers synced.
Significantly, Romie employs machine learning so it becomes more intelligent and personalized with every interaction, remembering details like preferred hotel styles and dietary requirements.
“We created Romie with hyper-personalization in mind, so travelers can get assistance throughout dreaming, planning and traveling – even when plans change – while the AI gets smarter,” explained Rathi Murthy, CTO of Expedia Group.
Expedia is betting big that AI like Romie can help reduce travel stress and revolutionize how vacations and trips are planned and experienced. An alpha version of Romie is already available on their EG Labs platform, with the company encouraging user feedback.
As AI continues to advance, the travel tech giant aims to be at the forefront of implementing these innovations to deliver seamless, personalized journeys for its customers around the globe.
