Asian online travel platform Klook and Google Cloud today announced an expanded AI partnership that will equip the former’s entire organisation with a shared AI infrastructure layer to tackle travellers’ and merchants’ most pressing needs.
The renewed partnership builds on Klook’s most recent AI successes with Google Cloud, including the use of generative AI to help create and localise content for Klook’s travel pages, effectively slashing production times by more than 80 percent whilst boosting translation accuracy and content quality.
Klook’s engineering teams have also increased the efficiency of their code review processes by 60 percent while improving platform performance by up to 70 percent, after introducing Google’s generative AI tools to assist in a range of software development and testing processes.
According to Klook co-founder and CTO Bernie Xiong: “Even in our earliest explorations with Google Cloud, generative AI has improved Klook’s ability to drive greater efficiencies at scale as we expanded our global footprint, while enabling our teams to innovate and operate more efficiently. Our expanded collaboration with Google Cloud pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with AI in travel, creating a competitive edge that translates into faster, more impactful improvements to customer experience, merchant operations, and internal productivity for the long haul.”
Developing first-in-Asia AI solutions in travel
Klook’s AI infrastructure layer will power its roadmap for AI innovations in the next 12 months, tackling the most commonly-felt pain points amongst:
- Customers: Based on direct user feedback and platform data, Klook’s upcoming “shopping guide” feature will help travellers make more confident choices between similar experiences like tours, using generative AI to summarise reviews and establish common factors to aid in complicated comparison–a first for any online travel agent (OTA) platform in Asia.
- Partners: Klook is launching a set of solutions that will help merchants collect valuable business insights and improve their operational efficiency and excellence. A recent initiative that summarises user reviews into constructive feedback for travel merchants has already led to significant service level improvements across partners involved in Klook’s early pilots, with one merchant using this feedback to craft a new attraction-related product that now comprises 24% of the attraction’s total revenue.
- Internal teams: Klook engineers have begun using Gemini Code Assist to support testing and generating code for the Klook platform, while teams like marketing and finance are developing ways to streamline labour intensive tasks like search engine optimization (SEO) and reconciliation of bills.
Google Cloud will collaborate with Klook to co-develop its AI infrastructure layer, focusing initially on capabilities to validate the accuracy and reliability of all generative AI outputs. Klook will also tap Google Cloud’s expertise to meet best practices around responsible AI, hone technical skills within its own team of engineers, and ensure seamless transitions to newer AI technologies as they become available. Earlier in the year, Klook adopted Google’s Gemini foundation model, which led to better translation accuracy compared to the previous PaLM-2 model, with Google Cloud’s set of core APIs also contributing to the stability of Klook’s infrastructure even as AI technologies evolve.
An AI platform built on travel knowledge
Klook’s AI strategy will increasingly harness travellers’ feedback and merchants’ insights to drive impactful improvements.
User reviews, feedback, and destination travel information are already playing a critical role in the platform’s efforts to develop an AI-powered conversational commerce approach, one where a chat-based interface provides real-time, personalised recommendations similar to a travel expert.
This will make trip planning and booking the best local experiences seamless, interactive, and tailored to each traveller’s unique needs.
Klook’s existing AI solutions, like its generative AI for travel page creation, will also increasingly tap into its database of reviews and destination insights to provide unique and authentic perspectives to travellers.
Karan Bajwa, vice-president for Google Cloud in the Asia Pacific remarked: “Klook’s shared AI infrastructure layer will maximise the impact of innovations in any part of its business, while minimising the risks of duplicated effort and data fragmentation of more siloed approaches to AI development. This puts Klook in a strong position to solidify its first-mover advantage on generative AI, and translate its wealth of travel experience into immense value for its customers and partners, no matter where their journey takes them.”
