Budgets, Barriers and the Race to Agentic AI

Summary

After a year of hype, generative AI has moved firmly into execution mode for the travel industry, reshaping how companies think about technology investment, product development and competitive advantage. Based on a global survey of senior travel executives, this research examines where gen AI and agentic AI are already delivering value, how budgets are shifting to support them, and what’s holding organizations back from scaling. As agentic AI gains traction, the competitive divide is increasingly defined by who can move from experimentation to infrastructure.

Key questions addressed include:

• How are travel companies prioritizing generative and agentic AI within overall technology budgets and roadmaps?
• Where is gen AI already being used internally and in customer-facing products, and what impact is it having so far?
• What are the biggest barriers preventing companies from scaling AI beyond tactical use cases?
• How prepared is the industry for the next phase of agentic AI, including interoperability standards and agent-to-agent commerce?