Kayak has launched a new artificial intelligence feature that lets people ask a chatbot for travel tips and find flights just by taking a screenshot. This puts Kayak in line with many other travel sites that offer artificial intelligence services for trip planning and now price comparison.
PriceCheck, one of two new AI features from Kayak, allows users to check if they’ve found the best price by taking a screenshot of flight information found elsewhere. Kayak said in a statement that customers can upload a screenshot of any flight, even if they find it on a competitor’s website, and that PriceCheck will “scour hundreds of websites to see if it can find a better price.” .
Matthias Keller, chief scientist and senior vice president of technology at Kayak, said in an email to us edge The service uses artificial intelligence to extract information from screenshots, such as schedules and airlines, and uses the customer’s parameters to search the web for cheaper flights.
“It’s used to show users relevant content and compelling alternatives,” Keller said. “It’s also a way for us to attract new users, including those who are loyal to a specific airline or plan, as Kayak Pricecheck may also find better prices, even within this preferred provider.”
This type of artificial intelligence is called computer vision, and models can scan photos or PDFs and extract information such as key terms or objects. Google, Microsoft and Apple have been using computer vision for years to identify faces in photos so they can label them or search for terms in poorly scanned PDFs.
Kayak also wants to make it easier for customers to get answers to any travel-related questions they have. If travelers have any questions about their travel plans or want to narrow down their accommodation or activities, they can prompt the Kayak chatbot Ask Kayak. For example, people can ask the chatbot questions such as “What is the cheapest destination to fly to this weekend?” Or “Give me a hotel in New York City for under $300 a night.”
Ask Kayak is currently available to users in the US, UK and Canada, but will be rolling out to other regions soon. The company built Ask Kayak using ChatGPT.
Since generative AI services became popular, travel planning was one of the first use cases it was expected to disrupt. Kayak isn’t the only travel site exploring how generative artificial intelligence can improve the way customers search for flights or hotels. Expedia tells edge It hopes to use more artificial intelligence capabilities to get more people to start their travel plans on the site rather than on Google.
