Everyone who talks about travel
bots mentions Lola. Co-founded by Paul English, former co-founder of Kayak,
Lola has raised nearly $45 million in series A and B funding rounds; it
announced the latest in February, along with news about app enhancements for 2017. The
company has focused on consumer travel to date, though a note on its website
refers to "premier partnerships" that give executives of "select
companies" access to its services. Early press on Lola focused on the team's effort to evolve
travel agency tech, with an expectation that the company would pursue that
market, where artificial intelligence could transform the current green-screen
environments and increasingly fragmented content.
"It's
one of the most obvious uses for AI in the travel space," said BCD
Travel's Miriam Moscovici, adding that not only could AI support expanded
recommendations like entertainment and restaurants but it also could do many
of the small things that just take an agent time. "A lot of it isn't sexy. … Maybe it's just a matter of figuring out the traveler's status and then the
robot can pull together the amenities and benefits afforded to that status so
the agent can share them. It just gives them the capacity to do more sophisticated
things, and do them faster."
Despite
early signals, Lola has been disinclined to share its technology, but
others aren't waiting. Mezi founder Swapnil Shinde expects AI to heat up quickly
in the agency market, and broke the news to BTN that Mezi has a growing pipeline.
"We have a huge amount of interest from several different partners,"
he said, adding that the company would make announcements in the next few
months.