Adriana Lee

Revolut, a London-based digital banking platform, has turned travel payments into a distribution business in Europe. Now, with conditional approval of a U.S. banking license, Revolut is preparing to bring that same financial and travel strategy to the United States.

Booking Holdings has spent years trying to stitch a trip together across separate apps. Lola wagers one assistant built from scratch, with a membership model and human concierge service, can finally hold it together.

AI is creating multiple access points for travel distribution — and giving existing intermediaries new roles.

Kayak has stopped looking for what replaces metasearch. Skyscanner isn't replacing it either — but it's evolving with packages, multimodal travel, and potentially agents.

Europe's independent hotels face a new AI visibility problem: travelers are using AI to plan but few are booking through it, and the clearest measurable returns are showing up in operational uses rather than autonomous trip planning.

AI travel bookings are small. The stakes of what AI knows aren’t.

Vayo, Booking Holdings' second AI-native startup, launched Wednesday in private beta with a waitlist at vayo.com. It is built to become the place where travelers manage their entire trip, including reservations made outside Booking's own brands.

Booking Holdings already keeps trips organized. Now it's testing itineraries and learning profiles that work ahead of the traveler.

On Meta's third-quarter earnings call Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg spotlighted travel's significance for the Muse AI agent, and he made it clear that he's weighing business models to tap into that value — potentially across the Meta ecosystem.

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg called travel a “top use case” for the Muse AI agent, and wants a cut of transactions.