DENVER, CO—Lighthouse announced the launch of Connect AI, an AI engine designed to enable a deeper connection between hotels and AI-powered search and travel planning platforms.
Connect AI creates a data bridge between the hospitality industry and the rapidly expanding ecosystem of AI travel planning platforms. For hotels, Connect AI enables hotel chains and groups to be discovered, understood, and directly booked by AI agents. This ensures hotels are surfaced accurately and relevantly in AI-powered travel planning queries, with commission-free transactions.
For AI agents and large language models (LLMs), Connect AI provides a data layer, leveraging the Model Context Protocol (MCP) that offers AI agents and LLMs scaled access to real-time rates, availability, and contextual hotel information. This empowers AI platforms to deliver highly personalized and actionable travel recommendations to their users. Connect AI is a platform-agnostic solution that will work across multiple AI platforms such as Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
“We’re seeing travelers increasingly turn to AI tools for trip planning, and our data shows this shift is accelerating faster than anyone anticipated,” said Juanjo Rodriguez, head of marketing and direct growth products at Lighthouse. “According to Phocuswright research, 50 percent of travelers plan to use generative AI for leisure travel within the next 12 months. Hotels that connect with AI platforms now will be positioned to capture more value, while those that wait risk missing this transition entirely. Connect AI helps hoteliers get ahead of this curve.”
The primary benefits of Connect AI include:
- Enhanced Discoverability: Connect AI increases the visibility of hotels, ensuring they are surfaced by AI agents utilized by travelers for their planning needs.
- Comprehensive Information Accessibility: Connect AI ensures AI agents have access to all necessary information through a standard Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, including current rates and availability, alongside contextual details such as location, amenities, and reviews, enabling a more extensive and accurate understanding of the property.
- Direct Bookability: Connect AI facilitates direct bookings from users through their AI agent of choice, streamlining the conversion process and enabling hotels to capture more direct revenue.
- Unmatched Scale: Lighthouse’s existing infrastructure powers connected data solutions for 80,000+ hotels and monitors rates and availability for more than 300,000 properties with 1.7B daily price changes globally.
- Superior Data Accuracy: Lighthouse presents most accurate and up-to-date rates and availability, a critical factor for reliable AI-driven travel planning.
- Extensive Bookability and Integrations: Connect AI includes support for hundreds of booking engines across the globe, positioning Lighthouse to help hotels increase direct bookings through all AI channels while maintaining rate integrity.
“Connect AI represents a new approach to marketing and distribution strategy,” said Sergio Zertuche, chief sales and marketing officer at Palladium Hotel Group, a pioneering company in the adoption of this technology. “We see this as an exciting opportunity to connect with travelers in new ways. With the speed of AI adoption, we want to ensure our properties are discoverable and bookable when guests search through these new channels.”
Connect AI is now available to select hotel partners as part of an early access program.
