After nine months of closed beta testing, Otto The Agent—the AI-powered travel assistant backed by Steve Singh's Madrona Venture Group—is opening its availability to the wider public, including its first pilots in managed travel programs, the company announced.
Otto, using integrations with Spotnana and Booking.com, books and manages travel as it "gets to know you as a traveler," Otto CEO and founder Michael Gulmann said. It can connect with a user's calendar and plan travel based on the traveler's schedule and preferences and a few questions asked. Those preferences can be complex, such as if a traveler wants a certain seat location on a red-eye flight but a different location on daytime flights, Gulmann said.
If a traveler's schedule changes, or if there are flight disruptions, Otto can adjust travel plans accordingly, he said.
To date, users have had to sign up and be selected to use Otto, but now the company is allowing users to sign up and begin booking immediately. Using Otto is free, as the company's revenue is based on commissions, though Gulmann said the company might consider introducing a premium paid offering as well down the road.
Gulmann said the testing with the beta users indicated it was ready for the wider rollout.
"It's answering the questions correctly," he said. "Hyper-personalization is working as we expected it to. It's finding the flights and hotels within the first search results for the vast majority of folks."
Otto's focus so far largely has been on individual business travelers either not in a managed program or booking outside of their program. Among those users is former Orbitz Worldwide CEO and former Uber COO Barney Harford, who in a statement said he has been using the tool "to book all my business travel for several months now" as it "has simplified the shop and book process down to just a couple of minutes."
Now, Otto also is launching pilot programs with two companies, which it did not name, who are clients of Direct Travel—also a part of Singh's Madrona Venture family. One is "one of their larger corporates" that will be piloting Otto with a select group, Gulmann said. "If it goes well, it will expand to their larger traveler base," he said.
Those pilot customers join a growing list of companies looking to incorporate AI booking assistant technology into their travel programs. McKinsey & Co. has been bringing in Skylink's technology into its program allowing bookings through Slack, working with its travel management company American Express Global Business Travel, a project that earned director of travel and events technology Jamie Stewart BTN's Travel Manager of the Year honors this year. AI booking assistant technology BizTrip.AI also launched this summer, with Moderna among the large enterprise organizations testing it out.
While Direct Travel is a natural partner for Otto, Gulmann said that there is "nothing that limits Otto from working with any other TMC."
Direct Travel also is handling servicing for Otto users if the tool is unable to handle a user's need and must escalate to a human agent. Gulmann said such instances were rare during the beta phase, with any such cases generally stemming for servicing needs within 24 hours of a flight, at which point airline tickets are taken over by the airline. There is no extra cost to the user if they need live agent service, he said.
Otto also has been testing out an ability in which users can email their travel needs and receive two options for flight and hotel to book. The ultimate goal is to be able to communicate seamlessly through any channel, he said.
"You're getting to a world where it really becomes like your executive assistant," Gulmann said. "Sometimes I talk to them, sometimes I text, sometimes I email. With Otto, the core intelligence is separated from the communication method."