Dive Brief:
- Expedia Group is improving its experience with smoother journey flows, better personalization and AI-powered customer service as it works to keep up with changing consumer behavior, executives said on a Q3 2025 earnings call Thursday.
- The company, which owns Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity and Orbitz, redesigned Expedia's lodging search and post-booking journey, according to CEO Ariane Gorin. The updated experience, combined with enhanced recommendation models, led to double-digit growth in vacation rentals.
- In customer service, Expedia Group’s virtual agents now resolve more than half of inquiries, according to CFO Scott Schenkel. AI supports live agents as well by providing them concise summaries, which is reducing the service cost per transaction.
Dive Insight:
Expedia Group sees AI as a way to improve its customer experience from the initial search through their entire stay — even if that search started with a third party.
“No matter where a traveler starts their discovery journey, we're confident that they'll ultimately choose to book with the brand they trust and know we will be with them along their whole journey, including when something doesn't go as planned,” Gorin said during the call.
At the start of the year, the company integrated AI into key aspects including filters, property Q&A and review summaries, according to Gorin. These features are driving increased engagement and are expected to become more effective with time.
The number of room nights booked grew 11% year over year in the third quarter of 2025, according to a company earnings release. Revenue was up 9% year over year, and net income for the quarter was up 40% year over year to $959 million.
AI-driven search is changing how travelers plan and discover their trips, even if traffic from generative AI search is still small, according to Gorin. The brand is taking steps to ensure its brands show up wherever potential customers are searching, including through partnerships with companies like Google, OpenAI and Perplexity.
“Beyond the volume that comes from them, these early integrations are keeping us at the leading edge of evolving technology and customer behavior, learnings we're bringing directly back into our broader business,” Gorin said.
Personalization is key to turning travelers who arrive through AI search into customers, according to Gorin. Expedia Group is studying how to understand the context in which consumers arrive on its sites to create more relevant experiences for them.
“It's critical that the travelers have a good and seamless experience when they get handed off over to us,” Gorin said.
