It's the question every agency owner is quietly asking, and the honest answer is more encouraging than the headlines suggest. The fear is that AI agents will book the trip directly and cut the agency out entirely. The early evidence points the other way. In a recent note, Morgan Stanley argued that online travel agencies may be better positioned to benefit from AI than widely feared, challenging the consensus that AI agents will disintermediate booking platforms. The reason i

For twelve years, Amex GBT was the largest standalone corporate travel platform on earth and a money-losing public company. In 2024 it posted a $134 million net loss. Yesterday it agreed to be taken private for $6.3 billion at a 60% premium, with applied AI on the cover of the announcement. The arc between those two facts is the most important data point in B2B travel in a decade. The Profitability Inversion Eight weeks before the deal, Amex GBT reported its first profitable