This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.
For much of the past several years, travel companies have treated artificial intelligence as an experiment. Airlines launched generative chatbots, hotels automated guest messaging, and technology providers raced to showcase pilots that promised a more efficient future. Innovation moved quickly, often in siloes.
The harder question was always how those tools would connect to the complex systems that power the industry. In travel, that connection is also a trust problem: AI must be grounded in authoritative booking and servicing data, with clear provenance for every answer and action.
Now, the industry is entering a more consequential phase: integrating AI into the infrastructure that runs global travel. For travelers, the change could mean that the same AI tools used to research destinations increasingly shape the rest of the journey, from booking to service on the road. As companies move beyond early trials, the key question coming into focus is: How can AI operate across the dense, interconnected systems that power global travel?
SkiftX spoke with Gaëlle Bristiel, senior vice president of engineering at Amadeus, to discuss how the industry is moving from AI experimentation to large-scale deployment and what this means for the future of travel.
SkiftX: We’ve seen an explosion of AI pilots across travel. Why is this moment different from the experimentation phase?
Gaëlle Bristiel: All industries have gone through a period of heavy AI experimentation, and so has travel. In fact, AI has been part of travel technology for almost two decades, but what’s different now is that travelers themselves are increasingly using these tools, especially during the inspiration stage.
That early interaction changes expectations for the rest of the journey. Once travelers start planning with AI, they naturally want the rest of the experience to follow the same flow. They want the ideas generated during the inspiration phase to connect directly to booking and the travel experience. The industry has long talked about creating a seamless travel journey, but AI is now paving the way to make it a reality.
To make this happen, Amadeus approaches AI as a neutral execution layer for travel, connecting AI assistants, sellers, and suppliers to a trusted system of record, deeply integrated business logic, and global scale infrastructure so it can operate reliably across the industry.
Travel operates on some of the most complex, interconnected systems in any industry. Where does AI integration break down most often?
Travel still runs on legacy technology and strict regulation. Airlines, airports, hotels, and distribution systems rely on decades-old infrastructure that was not built for AI, with many APIs and data structures difficult for large language models to interpret. As a result, companies must adapt their systems while meeting strict security, compliance, and operational requirements, which makes scaling AI beyond early pilots challenging.
Additionally, traveler behavior is changing. Instead of structured inputs like dates and destinations, people now start with broader, experience-led queries. That changes how search and booking work, and the technology behind it must evolve.
Simply layering AI on top of existing systems may work at first, but it often struggles at scale. Travel companies are now rethinking their core platforms to enable AI to operate effectively across the full workflow. In an industry where accuracy is critical, a central system of record remains essential for booking, ticketing, and servicing. At Amadeus, the focus is not on adding AI on top of travel systems, but on embedding it directly into the core platforms that manage booking, pricing, and servicing, where reliability and scale really matter.
You’ve described orchestration as critical to scaling AI in travel. What does orchestration actually look like in today’s global travel ecosystem?
What makes AI effective in travel is not a single model, but the ability to orchestrate multiple capabilities across highly interconnected systems, workflows, and partners, while keeping control over decisions and outcomes. Orchestration also means coordinating the many players involved in a traveler’s journey, including airlines, hotels, airports, transportation providers, and activities.
From a technical perspective, the industry is moving toward specialized AI agents that handle specific tasks, such as content search, booking management, or disruption management. Smaller agents tend to perform more reliably and produce fewer hallucinations because their scope is clearly defined.
Those agents then need to be coordinated to complete end-to-end tasks. Orchestration allows them to communicate and collaborate while keeping visibility into what each component is doing.
How does embedding AI into core systems — reservations, revenue management, distribution — change the business impact compared with standalone tools?
AI has already existed in travel systems for years. For example, revenue management tools use AI to optimize pricing and demand forecasting. Traditionally, these systems operate independently and focus on their own objectives. The next step is to connect them.
Personalization is one of the most promising opportunities. If a traveler interacts with an AI assistant early in the planning process, that conversation provides context about preferences, travel style, and intentions. That context could flow into shopping, booking, and service interactions with appropriate consent.
There are also operational advantages. Travel brands often rely on separate teams and tools for pricing, marketing, and inventory management. AI integration can automatically coordinate these decisions and enable systems to evaluate options together, rather than relying on manual alignment across departments.
What outcomes are travel brands prioritizing as they invest in AI at scale — and how is Amadeus helping customers navigate that shift?
Travel companies feel a strong sense of urgency around AI. There’s broad recognition that it could reshape how travelers discover, plan, and book trips, even though the industry still lacks clarity on how the disruption will unfold.
As a result, companies are looking for guidance on how to participate in the shift. Amadeus helps bridge that gap. We work with major tech providers like Microsoft and Google, which are developing AI assistants that could influence how travelers access travel services.
We’re also investing directly in this space. We recently announced the acquisition of SkyLink, an AI-first company that built a proprietary AI architecture and a multilayer orchestration engine that integrates with chat platforms and enables travelers to book and service flights and hotels conversationally in seconds. Ultimately, we want to ensure our customers have the tools, technology, and expertise they need to participate in this new AI-driven ecosystem.
As AI adoption accelerates, what will distinguish companies that scale it successfully from those still stuck in pilot mode?
Building an AI prototype has become relatively easy thanks to the wide range of frameworks and tools available today. The challenge is operating them at scale. Successful companies invest heavily in monitoring, testing, and explainability. They also measure impact in business terms, such as conversion, service resolution time, and cost-to-serve.
AI systems don’t always produce identical responses. Organizations need testing frameworks that can evaluate a range of acceptable outputs. Observability is also critical. Companies must understand how their AI systems behave in production. Without that visibility, inconsistent responses can quickly erode user trust.
Another factor is using AI appropriately. AI excels at understanding human language and identifying intent, but it’s less suited for precise mathematical or optimization problems where traditional algorithms perform better. Companies that recognize those distinctions tend to produce stronger results. They use AI where it adds value, and rely on conventional software where it performs better. AI assistants can capture intent conversationally, but fulfillment needs precise orchestration across pricing, availability, ticketing, and servicing systems.
How do you approach governance and responsibility when deploying AI at scale?
In a highly regulated global industry, AI cannot scale without strong governance, security, and compliance. Amadeus has had this in place for several years. We created an AI office to oversee how AI is used across the company and ensure it meets security, compliance, and regulatory requirements, especially amid evolving rules such as the AI Act in Europe.
As the industry moves from experimentation to scale, governance is also changing. Early on, some duplication was expected as teams explored different ideas, but the focus now is on consolidating those efforts and scaling the most effective initiatives.
We’re doing this by bringing smaller projects into larger programs and building shared capabilities across the company. The goal is to create common AI building blocks that already meet compliance and security standards, so teams can focus on developing the business logic on top and move faster while maintaining oversight.
How do you see AI shaping the architecture of travel technology platforms over the next three to five years?
AI will likely follow a path similar to that of cloud computing. Cloud migration was a major transformation a few years ago, but it’s now simply part of how systems operate. AI will likely become just as embedded. Platforms will combine traditional system-oriented and event-driven architectures with AI components and specialized agents working together.
AI will not replace everything. Instead, it will complement existing systems. AI is not a destination, it’s a journey. The result will be a hybrid architecture in which AI and traditional platforms work together to power the travel experience.
To find out more about Amadeus, visit amadeus.com/ai
This content was created collaboratively by Amadeus and Skift’s branded content studio, SkiftX.
