In my last AI Steve Speaks blog, I shared predictions from leading AI experts that unemployment would increase to 20% due to the rollout of new AI Technology and that 50% of entry-level white-collar worker roles would disappear.
Unsurprisingly, when these predictions were brought to the attention of two young graduates looking to enter the UK Travel sector, whilst they were on stage discussing their prospects at last week’s ITT conference in Sardinia.
Both emphasised that although they understood the importance of AI tools and had been actively taught how to use them in their Leisure and Tourism courses, they wished to enter the industry to utilise their interpersonal skills and the human touch.
I quickly dispelled these concerns by pointing out that the inevitable result of workers using AI tools would be efficiency gains, leading to a shortened 4-day working week, with most humans having both increased wealth and leisure time to enjoy holidays.
Rather than posing a threat to the travel industry, the AI revolution is likely to offer it its biggest ever boom, as more people can explore the world without language barriers.
My own Neural Voice AI business supports conversations in 25 different languages with AI characters that have the knowledge of the internet at their fingertips, making planning journeys, selecting restaurants, booking taxis, as well as travelling between hotels and local attractions, child’s play.
The new Meta Ray-Bans I have just ordered are equipped with listening devices that will instantly translate foreign languages and display the English translation on the inside of my glasses. Extending this to allow for the immediate translation of my spoken English into any other language is only months away, so the language barriers that once restricted our travels are rapidly diminishing.
There will, therefore, be an ever-increasing number of flights and trips booked if we could discover ways to counter the polluting impact of air travel, either through new SAFE fuels or, in my opinion, the more likely route of carbon extraction and offsetting through other actions in our lives. You may complain about the move to electric cars, but this reduces your personal emissions by 29%. If you also install solar panels and improve insulation in your home, the resulting overall reduction will more than outweigh your increased travel emissions.
Contrary to some commentators, I really don’t see the need for restricting air travel if we can achieve net zero by focusing on transitioning to clean nuclear-powered electricity and replacing carbon-burning sources with electric power. It is unlikely that flying will ever be an emissions-free activity because the cost of biofuels and the scale of production required do not seem economically viable to me. However, as long as we balance flying with other emissions reductions, I don’t see the issue here.
I believe that most wars would be avoided if the world understood each other’s cultures and customs better, and travel is a key driver of this. Sorry, but having visited the USA, Russia and China, I know their people are human beings like us, and it’s often only power-hungry leaders that drive conflict. Just remember, as evidenced by the collapse of communist Russia, people can overthrow repressive rulers at any time, and even the worst of Trump’s excesses will soon fade in memory once the US population see the consequences of his isolationist policies.
However, travel will not be spared from AI’s massive impact.
Customers buying holiday packages online will swiftly cut down the 303 minutes that Google estimates they currently spend on researching holidays. In the next three years, we will all possess digital twins securely stored on our phones that recognise our buying habits and preferences. Do you genuinely believe our AI twins will opt to purchase from humans? They will merely reach out to the AI agents of travel companies to receive 3-4 recommendations for their owners, along with customer reviews, videos, and photographs, to inform their final choices.
Nonetheless, just as high street shops have survived and home workers have thrived despite the rise of the internet, AI tools will be utilised by human agents to arrange more intricate or costly holidays, where customers prefer to depend on the expertise of a trusted human travel agent to employ these tools on their behalf.
Never forget that travel represents the most significant purchase a customer makes annually, centred not on a physical product but rather on a promise of delivery. This implicitly necessitates trust, and it is human interaction that builds this trust. Therefore, while you may use AI to book flights and accommodation for quick beach getaways, you are unlikely to place your trust in AI for the increasingly complex and long-distance travel arrangements to foreign lands that will rapidly become accessible in a world without language barriers.
The main impact of AI tools in travel will not be to replace humans as such, but to make the top-selling agents with the best empathy and sales skills considerably more efficient. As Simon Powel, owner of Systems X, demonstrated at the ITT conference, all calls will be automatically transcribed, summarised, and utilised as booking drivers through AI integrations. If AI co-pilots can reduce administrative tasks, agents will have more time for their essential human interactions with customers. However, by implication, this will mean fewer agents, as the most successful will handle many more clients concurrently.
AI tools like Neural Rivers, “AI Reps in Your Pocket”, will also enable agents’ branding to accompany customers on holiday, providing AI voice interaction that allows customers to utilise the internet’s knowledge to choose between restaurants and bars based on their convenience and reviews. Each conversation is instantly captured, summarised, and used to drive WhatsApp itineraries and booking links.
More importantly, that information is also fed back into the agent’s CRM, providing them with a much deeper understanding of their customers’ preferences, which facilitates a continuously evolving level of personal service and interaction.
AI tools also ensure you’ll never miss a call again or be unavailable to clarify arrangements, even if customers are heading to the airport at 3 am for an early morning low-cost departure. Your AI Copilot will handle every mundane call immediately and triage all others for your attention.
The quote of the ITT conference was that “If you’re not moving forward with AI, you’re moving backwards against your competition and may soon be out of a job”.
Explore some of the products developed by Neural Voice as simple MVPs to appreciate the art of the possible and commence your journey.