THE HORIZON: AI-wallets will soon enable end-to-end commerce within ChatGPT

Sam Hon, CEO of CREX – an AI visibility scanner for hotels – is predicting that the booking flow, currently dominated by OTAs, will be disrupted “very soon” with AI, which is an emerging alternative channel alongside other channels like direct bookings.

AI, however, has its own unique characteristics, such as:

*10-day data refresh cycles on its data pool

*AI is a reasoning model. If an AI agent faces difficulty locating specific property details, it will abandon the search for more accessible data.

*Standard keyword-focused SEO ineffective as it focuses on keyword matching; AI instead evaluates semantic context within words, paragraphs and long conversations.

*As a reasoning model, AI prioritizes data integrity, which means consistency across all information about an entity from its website to photos of hotel posters. Inconsistent details between these touchpoints will result in a lower visibility score.

“AI will flag these discrepancies and penalize the property accordingly,” Hon noted.

He also warned of what he terms “GEO poisoning.”

Properties that neglect their digital narrative risk having their brand identity shaped by third-party contributors, such as an external rant about the hotel from a disgruntled guest on Reddit.

AI models aggregate data from independent bloggers and external content when official information is insufficient, which can allow outside voices to dictate the property's public image.

To combat this, Hon suggests that hotels should aim to answer “not every question, but certain specific questions extremely well,” creating a niche that AI can easily prioritize.

Bigger changes can soon be expected:

“As we use more and more AI and it gives us more and more recommendations including rooms and other products, in a very short period of time – probably within this year – the entire booking journey will change,” Hon says.

“It will be changing towards the direction where the user starts off with generative AI, and plans the entire travel journey – not only do they get room recommendations integrating their preferences; very very soon, AI will be able to complete the booking, select the rooms and get the payment done as well,” he described.

Hon underscored the importance of AI visibility for hotels — so that they will be integrated into the AI-commerce process once it matures.