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.
Impact and considerations
For business travel buyers, Booking Holdings' multi-track AI bets and agent-commerce strategy could reshape corporate booking channels, supplier leverage and competition in disruption-recovery service.
Key points
- Fogel said Booking Holdings is running five AI approaches: consumer agents for Priceline, Agoda and Booking.com, plus two native AI startups.
- He described the approach as venture-capital style: most bets will not be great, but only one needs to be a big winner.
- He said the technology itself is becoming easy to build, so the advantage comes from what AI alone cannot provide.
- Fogel said AI referral traffic drives fewer than 1% of room nights at Booking.com today, calling that fact neither positive nor negative.
- He expects commerce through AI agents to grow, with Booking positioned to handle the transaction under some economic relationship.
- Fogel said Airbnb entering hotels was inevitable and could prompt home-rental hosts reliant on one platform to seek additional demand from Booking.
Sources and time
- Primary source
- Skift
- Other sources
- 0
- First source publication
- 24 Sept 2026, 05:10
- Page published
- 24 Sept 2026, 05:40
- Last updated
- 24 Sept 2026, 05:10
- Original links
- Skift Feed：Booking Holdings: Building a Long-Term Competitive Advantage (opens in a new tab)Primary source · en · Published 24 Sept 2026, 05:10