Expedia Is Training AI to Bypass Your Hotel Website.
đ Expedia partnered with Perplexity to launch a free AI-powered browser called Comet.
It plans trips, compares hotels, creates itineraries, and even books the stay without the user ever visiting your site.
As a bonus for downloading Comet, Expedia gives travelers Silver status in its loyalty program.
Thatâs loyalty status just for trying the AI tool.
Why?
Because search behavior is shifting.
Travelers are no longer clicking through ten pages of listings.
They’re asking AI to find, plan, and book.
And Expedia wants to own that transaction before anyone else can touch it.
Hereâs the threat:
Your hotel can now be completely bypassed in the booking process.
No site visit.
No branded search.
No chance to convert.
The AI chooses what gets shown.
And youâre not part of the conversation.
FOR HOTEL TEAMS WHO HAVENâT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION
You are not competing against OTAs anymore.
You are competing against interfaces that donât even show your hotel.
Comet is agentic AI.
That means it doesnât just give the guest options.
It acts.
The traveler says âbook me a family-friendly hotel in Miami this weekend.â
Comet checks inventory, picks the property, and books it.
If youâre not in that shortlist, itâs over.
And your direct channel?
It never got a chance.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR COMMERCIAL TEAMS
This is not a tech issue.
Itâs a commercial one.
Right now, most hotel teams are still chasing promo calendars and optimizing web banners.
But the guest isn’t even seeing the banner.
Theyâre talking to an AI that already made the booking.
The interface has changed.
The funnel has changed.
The fight for visibility has moved upstream.
If your team doesnât understand how agentic AI works, they canât fight for visibility inside it.
If you donât train your AI to know your hotel, it will never recommend it.
FIVE MOVES TO MAKE RIGHT NOW
1ď¸âŁ Get Your Team AI Literate
Everyone in commercial needs to know how AI search works.
Just how to shape what the AI sees and selects.
2ď¸âŁ Audit Your Content for Machine Readability
The AI reads differently than Google.
If your descriptions, reviews, and pricing are a mess, you wonât make the cut.
3ď¸âŁ Add Conversational AI to Your Direct Channel
Voice agents and chat tools help close bookings and train the AI on your hotelâs offerings.
Theyâre a survival layer.
4ď¸âŁ Stop Thinking in Websites
The homepage isnât the starting point anymore.
Discovery happens before a single click.
Optimize for the AI conversation, not just the browser experience.
5ď¸âŁ Treat AI Like a New Distribution Channel
Itâs not about OTAs vs direct anymore.
Itâs about whether AI knows your hotel exists and believes itâs worth booking.
Expedia didnât launch a browser.
They launched a new kind of gatekeeper.
One that books before you even know the guest was looking.
If your hotel isnât part of that moment, itâs already been skipped.
