Michael Motamedi found himself in a small village in the mountains of Montenegro eating a unique smoked meat that’s been made by the same family for the last 200 years. The town is the only place in the world that makes the rare variety of prosciutto.

It’s an eatery the Louisville-based entrepreneur turned travel influencer never expected to find or planned to see.

So how did he end up there? He asked an AI travel assistant called GuideGeek.

Built on OpenAI, the new system is being tested by Motamedi as he travels the world. It pulls from the collective knowledge of the entire internet, but it’s curated by humans at Matador Network, the world’s largest independent travel publisher.

Since June, Motamedi and his family have exclusively used GuideGeek to plan their year-long adventure around the globe. The experiment is documented on their web series called “No Fixed Address.”

“GuideGeek has proven to be a much faster path to authentic interactions with the local people and culture than any other travel resource I’ve experienced,” he said in a release. “It’s a little ironic when you think about it, but it’s true.”

Motamedi is far from alone when it comes the testing the AI water to enhance and curate their travel experiences. Around 12% of people surveyed in October said they have used ChatGPT to plan a trip, according to a tracking study by Longwoods International. A survey by Booking.com found 48% of respondents would trust AI to plan their trip.

Now, in less than a year, systems like ChatGPT and OpenAI have thrown the entire travel industry into uncharted territory that experts say is packed with potential — but also punctuated by serious pitfalls.

A travel revolution

Today, it’s nearly impossible to find a company involved in tourism or hospitality that doesn’t use at least one AI-powered technology, according to Dmitri Koteshov, senior business and tech editor at EPAM, which provides software engineering help to businesses.

Hotels are using AI chatbots to replace concierge services. Companies like Expedia allow customers to begin a conversation on ChatGPT and then book the trip the AI has helped plan.

In fact, by 2026, the AI market in the travel and hospitality industry is estimated to surpass $1.2 billion, growing around 10% every year until then, according to market research published by IndustryARC.

“No innovation has revolutionized the industry more than artificial intelligence in tourism,” Koteshov wrote in a blog post.

For travel agents, using AI to find information can save hours tracking down detailed requests from clients. Saving time in the planning process allows advisors to focus on providing more real-time support, explained Zane Kerby, president and CEO of the American Society of Travel Advisors.

“Artificial-learning platforms are doing a lot of the hard grunt work of finding things out,” he said. “It’s finding these things and presenting options to the advisor much more quickly than we have been able to do in the past.”

‘Generic trips,’ hallucinations

Cameron Hewitt, content and editorial director for Rick Steves’ Europe, which produces a popular PBS television show and publishes guidebooks, agreed a major perk of AI is the ability to track down local hotels, restaurants and destinations within seconds.

His worries come from people who exclusively rely on technology to plan a trip.

“In the future, there’s going to be travelers who like to use AI, but they’re going to have pretty generic trips that are going to be kind of soulless,” Hewitt said.

Even more concerning is AI’s tendency to fabricate information if it doesn’t have an answer. That’s something Hewitt ran across while experimenting with ChatGPT to see how it compared to his own travel writing.

He said the system hallucinated the ticket price for a tour at an Irish castle he had just visited. It also produced misleading information about the times the castle is open to visitors.

“When you really look under the hood and you start probing at it, you realize there’s mistakes, there’s misinformation and most of all, it lacks a soul,” Hewitt said. “It lacks that personal travel touch.”

Motamedi with “No Fixed Address” admitted using AI-fueled GuideGeek isn’t perfect. When he asked it to guide him somewhere with authentic French cocktails while in Paris, it recommended British cocktails instead.

The company explained it has already reduced the number of conversations containing errors from 12% to less than 5%, and is targeting getting that down to 2%.

Even with the mistakes, Motamedi noted, the AI system has dramatically reduced the time they spend planning and trying to find information about a destination.

Kerby with the Travel Advisors Society argued AI is currently best used as a first pass to gauge travel options, which should then be honed and vetted to develop the best trip possible using advice and tips from experienced travel advisors.

“ChatGPT can never give you actual advice, because advice comes from experience,” he said. “It can organize information really easily and quickly and sort of make order out of chaos, but providing advice it cannot do.”

Securing AI

The rise of AI-powered travel comes as more Americans are heading to the skies than ever before.

In August, the number of people on international flights hit 11.6 million — an all-time record compared to the same month in previous years, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. AAA expects 4.7 million people will fly over Thanksgiving, an increase of 6.6% compared to 2022 and the highest number of Thanksgiving air travelers since 2005.

In response, airports are also embracing AI to improve security and the passenger experience.

In June, the Transportation Security Administration announced it was expanding its pilot program using AI-powered biometric facial recognition from 30 airports to more than 400 over the next several years.

TSA officials argue the technology not only makes travel safer, but also speeds up the screening process.

AI-powered systems can also automate and optimize airport processes such as baggage handling and returning lost luggage or items to passengers. Seventeen airports are currently using Lost and Found Software, a platform that recently integrated ChatGPT to speed up the item recovery process from days to just hours.

John Pistole, the TSA director from 2010 to 2014 who today serves as president of Anderson University in Indiana, said the goal of both government agencies and travel industry should be to both increase security and improve passenger experience.

AI is a tool that can do both, he explained.

“Lots of smart people are trying to understand what you can and cannot do with AI, and then how do you use it in a positive way that enhances the person’s life and, in this case, travel experience,” Pistole said. “How can they use existing best practices and then lean into responsible innovation?”

That’s one of thousands of questions surrounding AI as the industry rapidly adapts it to modern-day travel.

The one thing that’s for certain? The uncertainty, argued travel writer Hewitt. Give the technology a few more years to develop, and who knows how it will change the industry, he said.

“This is developing so quickly that I think six months or a year or two years from now will seem painfully out of date,” he said. “What it’s capable of doing and how people are using it is changing almost by the day.”