Travel tech developer Sabre’s new white paper Chat As the New Influencer: From Conversations to Clicks is already causing a stir in the industry, thanks to its predictions regarding significant changes in the way travel is discovered, personalised, and booked.
The paper argues that conversational commerce driven by agentic AI is not just a new channel, but a new paradigm, poised to redefine the traveler journey.
When this happens, it will unlock unprecedented growth across the industry, akin to how commerce via social media revolutionized other retail industries over the past decade.
At the same time, the paper calls on travel brands, retailers, and suppliers to act now: embrace conversational interfaces, rethink merchandising, and build for trust.
As traveller expectations evolve, the winners will be those who meet them inside the conversation with speed, relevance, and confidence.
A looming paradigm shift
Unlike online shopping for something with low complexity, shopping for travel isn’t just about choosing a destination; it’s about syncing flights, hotels, ground transport, and availability across multiple travelers, all shaped by where you live, where you’re going and how you’ll get there.
While social media has undeniably influenced travel decisions over the last several years, the complex travel industry has never been able to fully harness the look-to-shop commerce pipeline, until now.
According to Sabre’s chief marketing officer Jen Catto: “Conversational commerce is more than ‘just’ a tech trend for the travel industry; it’s a generational leap. It will collapse the distance between desire and delivery, turning complexity into conversion and transforming every traveler into their own influencer. Talk is no longer cheap: it’s AI-powered and driving revenue.”
What Sabre foresees for travel retail
The white paper outlines a compelling vision for the future of travel retailing:
- Social commerce inspires travel purchases. Conversational commerce will convert. While social platforms spark wanderlust, they fall short on trust and infrastructure. Agentic AI closes the gap, turning intent into action in seconds.
- AI is expanding the market. Over half of travelers using agentic AI discover options they wouldn’t have found otherwise, signaling true demand creation, not just share shift.
- The storefront is changing, and agentic AI is the new UI. Travel won’t just be sold on websites and apps. It will be co-created in chat windows, voice assistants, and AI agents.
- Trust will be the new currency. As AI adoption accelerates, transparency, governance, and data integrity will separate leaders from laggards.
With this shift, it’s finally the travel industry’s turn to lead the next digital revolution. Sabre is driving this transformation to a new frontier.
How Sabre stands to change the game
Through its SabreMosaic platform, Sabre is deploying enterprise-grade AI built on Google’s Vertex AI and Gemini solutions, powered by Sabre’s industry-leading curated travel data cloud.
Its Sabre IQ AI Layer personalizes interactions at scale, while its IQ Assurance Layer ensures outputs are explainable, secure, and compliant.
Sabre’s chief product and technology officer Garry Wiseman declared: “Sabre isn’t just responding to change, we’re setting the pace. We’re building the platforms to turn conversations into commerce, and commerce into loyalty. This is travel retailing reimagined from static search to dynamic, personalised dialogue.”
