#corporate-travel
Why AI's biggest disruption in travel is your org chart, not your tech stack
Travel companies treat AI adoption as a technology problem. The real bottleneck is structural — the layers of the organization built to route information AI now makes redundant.
Read →What AI really costs in travel — and the architecture that survives it
The market thinks AI costs $20 a month. Run real travel data through real models and that number falls apart. Here's the cost reality — and the architecture that keeps it sane.
Read →B2A: the agent distribution channel most travel brands aren't in yet
Travel has always sold to the trade (B2B) and to the traveler (B2C). A third channel is forming — business-to-agent — where the buyer is an AI. Most brands aren't in it, and don't know it.
Read →Why mergers and AI transformations don't mix — the hidden cost inside the GBT deal
Long Lake paid $6.3B for Amex GBT, then asked one organization to absorb a merger and an AI rebuild at the same time. I led a three-company merger. Here's why running both at once is harder than the press understands.
Read →Why AI won't break travel on the interface — it breaks on trust
Brian Chesky says chatbots can't crack travel. The interface was never the real question. Trust is — and trust is an adoption process you walk through, not a feature you design.
Read →Expedia's B2A MCP server lets agents book hotels — but the 'preferred' flag lives one layer above the protocol
Expedia opened a business-to-agent MCP server so AI agents can book hotels directly. The protocol can carry the inventory. The harder question is what happens to the 'preferred supplier' signal that never lived in the inventory record.
Read →The look-to-book multiplier: what AI agents really do to travel distribution
Look-to-book nearly drowned travel distribution years before anyone said 'agent.' Here's what AI agents change, and the one chance the industry has to design the problem out.
Read →How AI Agents Actually Pick Hotels (and Why SEO Won't Save You)
AI engines don't rank hotels, they reason about them. Here's the mechanism behind AI travel recommendations, why generic agents push four and five star hotels onto three star policies, and the two moves that actually shift the result.
Read →Connected Isn't Chosen: The Three Layers of AI Travel Distribution
Being integrated with an AI platform is not the same as being surfaced by it. Travel distribution now has three layers, and the industry is racing to win the first two while the third quietly decides who gets booked.
Read →Build vs Buy AI: The Two Walls Nobody Prices, and Where to Draw the Line
Most companies decide whether to build AI in-house by doing the math on cost. Cost is not what kills them. There are two walls, and the second one is the reason your architecture can age backwards while the technology gets better.
Read →Why Google Shops and Amex GBT Books: Revenue per Employee Explains the Travel Industry's Balance
Google could have full travel booking capability tomorrow and keeps saying no. Four 2025 annual reports explain why: revenue per employee runs from $2.1M at Alphabet to about $100K at Amex GBT. Every rung down, fulfilment needs more people per dollar. The only question is whether AI changes that ratio.
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