Wall Street analysts share perspectives on the future of travel and artificial intelligence

22-12-23

Everyone wants to know where money, the market and its creators are headed in the next chapter of travel. In a Phocuswright Conference session dedicated to the intersection of finance and investment, leading Wall Street analysts shared their perspectives on where things will be headed in 2024.

Panelists included Helane Becker, managing director at TD Cowen; Naved Khan, managing director at B. Riley Securities; and Mark Mahaney, senior managing director at Evercore. Moderating the discussion was Jake Fuller, managing director at BTIG.

In a conversation that touched on numerous topics, Fuller focused attention at one point on the technology, taking a contrarian stance on expectations for generative artificial intelligence.

"Personally, I've tested 25 to 30 AI-based travel planners, and I have to say it's massively disappointing so far," he told the group. "I'm getting a number of traditional links that I would see in a paid search. I'm not getting personalized recommendations, and there's no real integration of booking functionality. Feel free to tell me I'm crazy, but ... how far are we from a major, transformative, consumer-visible change?"

Mahaney turned out to be the most optimistic in his response. "To me, that's the obvious and excellent application: anything that can address customer service needs, anything that leads to greater personalization," he said. "So all you're doing is taking larger data sets and applying faster intelligence. If you can personalize the travel search and booking experience ... there should be a wonderful application here for artificial intelligence. ... I would expect to see something really evident to the user in the next year or two."

Meanwhile, Khan, who saw huge potential, predicted a longer time frame. "I think we're in the first half of the first inning of a very long game, maybe a nine-, 10- or 11-inning game," he commented, referencing baseball, where an "inning" refers to one of the game's nine divisions.

"At the same time, I think we, as humans, think linearly, and this could change things exponentially. That is, let's not expect linear change. Let's expect step function changes with each iteration...we might be surprised if we start to see changes in terms of consumer usage...in the next two to three years," he continued.

The conversation turned to how airlines are using artificial intelligence when Becker spoke.

"They're using the mobile app more aggressively, sending you data, first of all," he explained. "Secondly, the idea that if you're booking, you can be automatically referred to the flight, but do you also want the hotel? Do you want the rental car? What else do you want? If you have problems, you can use their chat feature. So it makes it easier. And I think as young people travel more, you'll probably see more technology improvements because they're so used to doing everything on their phones, as opposed to some people who like to use a computer, a laptop or an iPad."