The news: AI adoption in travel planning is rising, and Gen Z and millennials globally are leading the way.

• Nearly two-thirds of adult travelers younger than 45 would use AI for travel recommendations on their next trip, per Simon-Kucher’s Travel Trends 2026 report.
• Adults 45 and older are less likely to do so—44% of Gen X and just 29% of baby boomers—but these numbers still show a market for AI-assisted travel across generations.

Zooming in: Travelers use a variety of AI tools in the planning process. The No. 1 use? Assistance.

• 42% have used genAI to create an itinerary, per Simon-Kucher.
• 31% employed it to search for flights, hotels, and other bookings.
• 28% used chatbots on booking sites.

However, not all results lived up to expectations. Among those who were dissatisfied with genAI responses:

• 52% said the AI answers were incorrect.
• 47% thought results were too generic and “didn’t appeal” to them.
• 31% felt the tool had limited functionality and ended up calling a human for answers.

As in retail journeys, travel consumers want personalization and simplicity. Travel brands need to ensure their AI tools sufficiently match what travelers are looking for.

Recommendations for brands: The action plan is two-fold for travel and hospitality companies, requiring both an internal and an external focus.

• Monitor mentions on community-driven sites like Reddit and Yelp and resolve any negative feedback. GenAI tools regularly scrape that content, and bad reviews could surface in results or reduce brand visibility.
• Similarly, increase brand presence across social media and interact with posts and comments to boost presence in AI responses.
• For internal genAI, test chatbots on a variety of potential consumer prompts to gauge results. Chatbots might not produce the same response every time, so quality control is imperative.
• Ensure AI responses are personalized to the consumer. Use enterprise genAI tools with data sharing turned off to train AI on proprietary data and create assistants geared toward specific data sets.