Booking Holdings Builds Long-Term Advantage With Five Parallel AI Bets

Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel said at Skift Global Forum that the company is running five simultaneous AI bets in a venture-capital style, including consumer agents for Priceline, Agoda and Booking.com plus two native AI startups. He said the technology itself is becoming easy to build, so the real advantage lies in what AI alone cannot provide. Fogel said AI referral traffic currently drives fewer than 1% of room nights at Booking.com, though he expects commerce through AI agents to grow. He also said Airbnb's move into hotels was inevitable and could push home-rental hosts who rely on a single platform to seek additional demand sources.