In film and other media, AI has been somewhat of an obsession for decades now. Will it condemn humans to oblivion? Will it remind us what it actually means to be human? Will it integrate to create a utopia?
NB: This is an article from SiteMinder, one of our Expert Partners
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The travel industry is now grappling with these same questions, as hoteliers wonder what the future holds now that AI has firmly embedded itself in the lives of travellers and the operations of hospitality businesses.
In parts one and two of this series, we discussed what’s happening right now, but just how far can it all go and what are the implications?
A future that once felt like science fiction is basically already here, a future where humans barely need to interact at all. Instead of hopping online to research and book a trip (maybe even make a call), a traveller might simply instruct their AI agent to do it all for them – and it will do so by communicating not with the hotelier or airline, but with their own respective AI agents.
In a matter of minutes, multiple AI agents have organised an entire trip including hotel booking, flights, airport transfers or car rental, packages, activity schedules, and personalised preferences like room temperature and beverages in the minibar.
This is no longer a thought experiment. The infrastructure is being built by some of the world’s most powerful companies and hoteliers are asking what the endgame is. Is there a stable future-state or will our industry be in constant flux?
Welcome to the third and final part of our series, where we examine what the future might look like as AI capabilities continue to expand and AI adoption continues to grow across the globe.
AI is already transitioning from search assistant to autonomous booker
Earlier in our series we discussed how travellers are using AI to ‘discover’ hotels, but a shift has already occurred and AI is now able to ‘act’ on behalf of users. It’s known as agentic AI.
In early 2026, Sabre, PayPal, and MindTrip announced a partnership to build what they describe as the travel industry’s first end-to-end agentic AI booking system. A traveller describes their trip in natural language. The AI queries real-time inventory across more than 420 airlines and two million hotel properties. PayPal’s commerce infrastructure handles payment without the traveller ever leaving the conversation. This potentially creates the most seamless search, booking, and payment process that travellers have ever experienced.
Meanwhile, Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano revealed in February that the hotel giant is building an integration to process bookings directly through Google’s AI Mode.
