The AI Travel Agents Available Today, and the One You Can Put in Your Own Product
A year ago, "AI travel agent" mostly meant a chatbot that wrote itineraries. Today, almost every major travel brand has one, and the biggest AI assistants have travel partners built in. For travelers, that is a lot of choice. For travel businesses, there is a more specific question: which of these can I actually use in my own product?
Here is a practical tour of what exists, followed by where TourScanner fits.
The landscape
OTAs and metasearch
Kayak AI Mode. Kayak launched a ChatGPT-powered AI Mode inside Kayak.com in October 2025, following a beta on Kayak.ai in April 2025, and renamed it Ask AI in April 2026. It is a conversational layer on Kayak's website search, and bookings are completed with the supplier that owns the fare.
Expedia ("point agents"). Expedia piloted its assistant Romie in messaging threads such as SMS and WhatsApp, and has since moved to narrower "point agents". Expedia is also making itself available across AI platforms, including an app inside ChatGPT, a connector in Claude, Google AI Mode and, announced for later, Meta's Muse agent. In ChatGPT and Claude, the booking closes on Expedia; in Google AI Mode, the traveler checks out inside Google.
Booking.com. The AI Trip Planner has been evolving into a more embedded companion inside the Booking.com experience. Booking.com also runs an app inside ChatGPT for browsing stays and, since May 2026, rental cars, with payment completed on Booking.com.
Trip.com TripGenie. An in-app assistant.
Reviews and experiences
Tripadvisor. Tripadvisor has an AI itinerary generator and has taken its content to wherever travelers ask questions: a ChatGPT app, a partnership with Perplexity, Alexa+ and, since April 2026, Claude. In Claude, travelers browse photos, review summaries, ratings and prices in the chat, then click out to Tripadvisor or Viator to book.
Viator. Tripadvisor's experiences marketplace is also available in Claude, and has a remote MCP endpoint that MCP-compatible assistants can connect to. Booking happens on Viator.
The AI platforms themselves
Google AI Mode. Since 27 August 2026, hotel booking has been rolling out inside AI Mode in the US, with partners including Booking.com, Expedia, Marriott, Hilton, IHG and Trip.com. Flights can be tracked and planned in AI Mode, but the ticket is still bought elsewhere.
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. General-purpose assistants that increasingly plug into travel partners for live inventory. Most of them recommend and compare, then send the traveler to a partner to pay (Perplexity's hotel booking with Tripadvisor is an exception).
Dedicated AI trip planners
Mindtrip. On 6 May 2026, Mindtrip became one of the first consumer products to complete a flight purchase inside the chat itself, using Sabre inventory and PayPal. It later added hotel stays.
Layla (acquired by Expedia Group in July 2026) and Wanderlog. Planning-first apps that build itineraries and usually send the traveler to a partner to book.
TourScanner
The TourScanner agent searches a catalog of more than 1,000,000 tours and activities, checks live prices and time slots, and hands the traveler a pre-filled checkout link. You can try it on tourscanner.ai, where the API calls appear in real time next to the conversation.
What most of these have in common
Look at the list from the point of view of a business with its own product: an airline, a hotel, an app, a content site. Two patterns stand out.
- They live on someone else's platform. Kayak's assistant lives on Kayak. Tripadvisor's lives on Tripadvisor, and in partner assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT. As far as public information shows, neither Kayak nor Tripadvisor offers its assistant as a component you can embed in your own site or app.
- The booking usually closes elsewhere. The assistant plans, recommends and compares, then hands the traveler off to the owner's own checkout.
That is a perfectly sensible model for a consumer brand. It is less useful if your goal is to keep the traveler, and the revenue, inside your own product.
|
Agent |
Where you use it |
Where the booking happens |
|---|---|---|
|
Kayak AI Mode |
Kayak.com (website) |
With the supplier or on Kayak's flow |
|
Tripadvisor / Viator |
Tripadvisor, Viator, and partner assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT |
Click-out to Tripadvisor or Viator |
|
Expedia / Booking.com |
Their own apps, ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Mode |
On Expedia or Booking.com; inside Google in Google AI Mode |
|
Google AI Mode |
Google Search |
Hotels inside Google in the US; other products elsewhere |
|
Mindtrip |
Mindtrip app |
In chat for flights, or with suppliers |
|
TourScanner |
In your own site or app (you build the interface), in MCP-compatible assistants, and in other companies' agents |
Pre-filled checkout link with Stripe payment |
Three things that are different about TourScanner
1. You can build it into your product
The TourScanner agent runs in your product through our API, with a key we issue: on your homepage, in your app or inside your support chat. You build the chat interface; your visitors talk to your assistant, see live prices and time slots, and get a pre-filled checkout link. It is a feature of your product rather than a link to someone else's.
2. You can connect it to AI assistants
Travelers increasingly start in general assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT. The TourScanner remote MCP server, with 12 tools for searching, checking live availability, creating checkout links and looking up bookings, can be added to MCP-compatible assistants such as Claude as a connector, using an API key we issue. In practice, that means an assistant connected this way can answer "things to do in Lisbon next Saturday" with live results from the TourScanner catalog.
3. Other companies' agents can use it too
The MCP server is not limited to our own agent. Any agent that speaks MCP and has a key from us, including one you or a partner build, can connect to it and run the same searches we do: find activities, check real-time availability and prices, create checkout links and look up bookings. If your company is building its own AI assistant, TourScanner can be the activities layer underneath it, with no custom connector for each provider.
Beyond the agent: checkout upsell
An agent is one way to sell activities. Another, often more profitable, way is to add the activities vertical directly to your checkout as an upsell, with no chat involved. That is a different product decision and a different integration, and we cover it in a separate series: see the checkout upsell series.
Which should you use?
- You run a travel product and want a conversational layer that is yours: build the TourScanner agent into your product.
- You want an assistant you already use to sell activities: connect the MCP server to Claude or another MCP-compatible client.
- You are building your own agent: use the MCP server as its source for tours and activities.
- You want to sell more at the moment of purchase: add activities to your checkout through the API.
These options work together, and many teams start with one and add the others.
Try it
Open tourscanner.ai, ask the agent for something specific, and watch the API calls as they happen. When you are ready to bring it into your product, request API access and tell us what you are building.