Kayak has introduced new AI features that allow users to ask a chatbot for travel tips and find flights with just a screenshot. Kayak joins the ranks of many other travel websites that offer AI services for travel planning and now also for price comparisons.
With PriceCheck, one of Kayak’s two new AI features, users can check if they have found the best price by simply taking a screenshot of flight information they have found elsewhere. Kayak said in a statement that customers can upload a screenshot of any flight, even if they found the flight on their competitors’ websites, and PriceCheck will “search hundreds of websites to see if we can find a better price”
Matthias Keller, chief scientist and senior vice president of technology at Kayak, said in an email to The Verge that the service uses AI to extract information from the screenshots, such as flight schedules and airlines, and searches the internet for cheaper flights using the customer’s parameters.
“The AI is used to show the user relevant content and attractive alternatives,” says Keller. “It's also a way for us to attract new users, including those who are loyal to a particular airline or program, because Kayak Pricecheck might also find a better price, even with that preferred provider.”
This type of AI is known as computer vision, where models can scan a photo or PDF file and extract information such as keywords or objects. Google, Microsoft and Apple have been using computer vision for years to recognize faces in their photos and tag them, or to search for terms in a poorly scanned PDF file.
Kayak also wants to make it easier for its customers to get answers to any travel-related questions. Travelers can reach out to Kayak's chatbot, Ask Kayak, if they have questions about travel planning or are looking for accommodations or things to do. For example, they can ask the chatbot questions like, “What's the cheapest destination I can fly to this weekend?” or “Tell me a hotel in New York City that costs less than $300 a night.”
Ask Kayak is currently available to users in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, but will soon be launched in other countries. The company developed Ask Kayak together with ChatGPT.
Since generative AI services have become popular, travel planning was one of the first use cases expected to disrupt them. Kayak is not the only travel website exploring how generative AI can improve how customers search for flights or hotels. Expedia has told The Verge that it wants to use more AI features to get more people to start their travel planning on the site rather than Google.
