Travel planning is about to ramp up as we head into Q4 and prepare for the holiday season. With this uptick in travel talk, brands are vying for a spot in the conversation.

We pulled data from Verve Intelligence, our insights platform that unifies over 1 billion daily signals across AI and search into one predictive view of buyer intent. Out of thousands of real, unprompted AI trip-planning conversations, four out of five never mentioned a brand at all. We analyzed the language travelers use with AI to understand the needs and decision criteria shaping travel consideration.

Not all travel conversations work the same way

Travelers use AI differently depending on the trip they’re planning. Two distinct patterns emerge:

1. The logistical. These conversations typically run fewer than nine prompts, with more than 60% or more focused on a specific aspect of travel. This is where cruises, hotels, and aviation live. In these categories, consideration, and often the decision itself, is happening outside AI, at least for now. These prompts are short and focused. Think: “Which Royal Caribbean ports will their Mexican Riviera itineraries visit?” or “What time does the Hampton Inn serve breakfast?”
2. The exploratory. These conversations typically run 10 or more prompts, with less than half focused on a specific travel aspect. Destinations, car rentals, and vacation rentals fall here. In these categories, planners are turning to AI earlier in the process, before a decision has been made. Prompts like “We’re going to Italy for two weeks, help me figure out which cities to fly into and out of” or “Would it be cheaper for six people to get an Airbnb and rental car in Maui?” are typical.

Destinations dominate, accounting for 56% of trip-planning prompts, well ahead of brand or booking questions. Whatever else is happening in AI-assisted travel planning, the starting point is almost always “where,” not “who.”

AI points to a middleman

There’s a growing view that AI is replacing the metasearch layer of travel planning, with assistants taking on some of the comparison work traditionally handled by platforms like Kayak or Google Flights. But our data shows that even though brands are often missing from travelers' prompts, AI is still serving up recommendations.

In chats where metasearch brands appeared, sites like Kayak, Google Flights, and Trivago were up to 15x more likely to be recommended by AI than explicitly requested by travelers. AI is reshaping the comparison-shopping journey completely by creating a second front door that guides travelers toward many of the same platforms from behind the scenes.

Brands can’t rely on being invited in

The opportunity varies by category.

For cruises, hotels, and aviation, most of the work has already happened by the time someone starts an AI conversation. Prompts show that travelers are already aware of and considering specific brands, so relevance needs to be built long before the conversation starts. On the other hand, for destinations, car rentals, and vacation rentals, the conversation is still open. That’s the window where showing up as a brand can shift the outcome, because the traveler hasn’t decided yet.

AI isn’t squeezing brands completely out of travel planning. While many brands are focused on ranking higher in AI responses, the bigger opportunity may be to build relevance before the conversation starts or influence consideration while it’s unfolding. If brands can get the timing right, being “invisible” in AI answers stops being a threat and starts being a gap that they can close.