Skift Global Forum: Five Decisions in the Room

Skift published a pre-read for its 2026 Global Forum framing five industry decisions: incumbency versus reinvention, funnel versus agent, premium versus volume, human versus machine, and certainty versus speed. Citing Skift Research, AI-enabled companies took 45% of travel startup funding by mid-2025, up from 10% in 2023; 30% of travelers reported "extensive" AI use for trip planning, up 17 percentage points; only 6% of hotels appear in AI-generated search results and only 2% of leisure travelers would let AI book for them. Delta's premium revenue rose 7% in 2025 while main cabin revenue fell 5%.