Travel’s AI Momentum Continues With New Tools From Hilton, Marriott and Amex GBT | Foster Garvey PC

Good Sunday afternoon from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, March 13, is under. Given the whole lot else happening the world (none of which may be very useful to journey), it was a comparatively quiet week in on-line journey. Much was written about Amazon’s preliminary victory over Perplexity early within the week, however little else gained a lot consideration. Enjoy.

• Hilton Introduces AI Trip Planner While Marriott Plans Launch of Conversational Search. Hilton introduced this previous week that it was beta testing a brand new AI enabled journey planner (“Hilton AI Planner”) that will permit customers to make use of conversational instruments to look locations, accommodations and facilities throughout the whole Hilton portfolio. The beta model is presently out there to pick out customers of Hilton.com. Hilton expects to progressively develop the rollout because it improves the platform based mostly on early beta interactions. Marriott plans to rollout related expertise to its web site and cellular app in pilot type within the subsequent months after which a wider rollout later this 12 months.
• Amex GBT Share AI Enabled Efficiencies. During Amex GBT’s fourth quarter earnings name this previous week, Amex GBT CEO, Paul Abbot, shared particulars concerning the TMC’s growing leverage of AI. Some key takeaways:
  • 83% of the TMC’s whole transactions are actually digital transactions with that quantity anticipated to extend with the growing reliance on AI
  • Amex GBT expects to launch Egencia AI subsequent month, which can permit customers to make use of pure language queries for each bookings and journey administration (all in accordance with relevant journey insurance policies)
  • Egencia’s present common reserving time is 3 minutes, with that quantity anticipated to go down as fewer bookings require human intervention
• Amazon Claims Early Round One Victory in Ongoing Agentic Lawsuit Against Perplexity. This previous week, a U.S. federal district court docket issued an order quickly enjoining Perplexity’s Comet internet browser brokers from accessing sure password protected sections of Amazon’s techniques to finish purchases on behalf of Perplexity customers. According to Amazon, Perplexity’s failure to reveal its brokers’ actions on behalf of consumers and subsequent failure to cease the exercise when requested by Amazon constituted laptop fraud. The court docket’s order is barely short-term, nevertheless, whereas to the 2 sides proceed to argue over the legality of Perplexity’s actions. Perplexity has vowed to enchantment the order, the impact of which was suspended particularly to permit Perplexity to file an enchantment. For these of you interested by the current order, we’ve linked to a replica of the court docket’s order under.

Have an awesome week everybody.

Marriott Sees Middle East Travel Dip, Expands AI Tools
March 12, 2026 through Skift
Marriott highlighted two forces shaping the resort business proper now – geopolitical volatility and a race to construct AI instruments that preserve vacationers inside its direct channels.

Travelers are Turning to AI to Plan Trips — But Hallucinations and Trust Gaps Remain
March 11, 2026 through CNBC
For many vacationers, the method of planning their journeys is a grueling slog via infinite value comparisons and messy browser tabs. Increasingly, they’re outsourcing the duty to synthetic intelligence. About 91% of worldwide vacationers depend on AI journey planners, based on an annual survey of 11,000 international customers by …

Hilton Launches Beta AI Trip Planner on Hilton.com
March 10, 2026 through Hotel News Resource
Hilton has launched a beta model of its AI Planner on Hilton.com, giving vacationers a conversational software to discover locations, examine accommodations, and evaluate …

Amex GBT Swings to Profit in Q4 with AI-Led Efficiencies in Focus
March 10, 2026 through Business Travel News Europe
Boosted by its accomplished acquisition of CWT, American Express Global Business Travel reported its income within the fourth quarter elevated 34 per cent 12 months over 12 months to $792 million, as CEO Paul Abbott stated the journey administration firm has reached an “exciting inflection point” in its AI technique.

Amazon Wins Court Order Blocking Perplexity AI Shopping Bots
March 10, 2026 through Bloomberg
Perplexity AI Inc. should for now cease utilizing its Comet internet browser agent to make purchases on behalf of consumers from Amazon.com Inc.’s on-line market, a court docket dominated this week. To view the preliminary injunction order, click on here.