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Travel booking platform Priceline upgrades AI assistant Penny

Travel booking platform Priceline upgrades AI assistant Penny

Upgrade saves users 10 minutes in planning and booking time

Travel platform Priceline – owned by the same company as Booking.com – has unveiled its Winter 2024 Product Release featuring a new AI-powered slate of features, including major upgrades to Penny, its AI-powered travel assistant. 

At a time when overwhelming options mean consumers spend an average of two full work days on trip research and booking, the latest additions to Priceline's Trip Intelligence suite includes more than 30 new features intended to streamline the travel planning and booking process.

A spokesperson for Priceline said: "The upgraded Trip Intelligence suite builds upon six months of real-world conditions and proprietary marketplace intelligence accumulated from Priceline's millions of customers since the technology debuted in Priceline's hotel category in June 2023. The company estimates that travellers who used Penny saved an average of nearly 10 minutes per trip compared to those who called customer support." 

Priceline is now rolling out Penny across its hotel, flight, car rental and vacation categories.

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A Priceline study found that more than half of travellers say they'd use AI tools to cut down on time, eliminate hours of onerous research and secure the best deals. Of those familiar with generative AI, the vast majority (73%) said they're receptive to using it and believe it will streamline travel planning and booking. A further, 65% said it would make travelling easier and more enjoyable.


For its Winter Release, Priceline's team of AI experts, prompt engineers, product developers and data scientists built integrated technology atop Google Cloud's Vertex AI and OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo to expand Penny's capabilities. 

Priceline is also introducing personalised GenAI itineraries within its iOS app. The upgraded app will now generate a suggested itinerary for users down to dining and activity options and include a new wallet for organising deals and coupons, with ways to skip check-in lines.

Priceline CEO Brett Keller said: "This is a continuation of Priceline's tradition of revolutionising travel with pioneering technology. We began fully integrating generative AI early last year, and our tools and features will only get better as customers and partners engage with them more and more."

For more information, visit www.priceline.com


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