AI is here to stay in the travel industry, but for now it’s as an assistant, not a replacement. Travel has too many moving parts, so when things go wrong, or a big trip is on the line, travelers still tend to trust a specialist.

Ixigo Group Co-CEO Rajnish Kumar spent a significant part of his company’s earnings call last week talking about AI – and he’s not alone. In the past few weeks, nearly every major Indian online travel agency has made announcements tying their growth or product updates to some form of AI: be it new chatbots, language tools, personalized trip planning, or automation in expense management.

Is AI really changing how these companies operate? Skift spoke to executives across several Indian OTAs to find out how they are actually using AI. The answers suggest this isn’t just about future potential, it’s already reshaping how bookings are made, support is handled, and teams are scaled more efficiently.

MakeMyTrip: From Reviews to Regional Languages

Initially using off-the-shelf models, MakeMyTrip now runs domain-specific GenAI systems to enable more natural, intuitive, and personalized customer interactions.

“Data is our real IP… we have the largest corpus of travel-intent data for all of India. This forms the fundamental base for building and implementing AI capabilities,” Sanjay Mohan, MakeMyTrip’s group chief technology officer, told Skift.

The OTA is now harnessing Generative AI across three major functions – analysis, synthesis, and translation – as part of a broader strategy to