Google’s already rolled out AI-powered functionality to help you secure the perfect gift for your loved ones this holiday season. Hard on the heels, the Mountain View, California-based tech giant now wants to give you new ways to plan your holiday travels with AI in Search.
Google is rolling out three new upgrades divided between Search’s AI Mode and Google Flights. The latter gets only one of the three major upgrades, so let’s go through it first!
Find airfare bargains with AI-powered Flight Deals
Now in more countries
Credit:Â Source: Google
Google launched Flight Deals, an AI-powered flight search solution, back in August this year. The tool aims to make the process of securing flight tickets a little less daunting, primarily by allowing users to put forward their ticket needs in a conversational manner.
So instead of manually filling out information like travel cities, general dates, and akin, you simply type in prompts like “Week-long trip this winter to a city with great food, nonstop only,” or “I want to see cherry blossoms in Japan within the next 4 weeks.”
Up until now, Flight Deals has been exclusive to the US and Canada. Today, Flight Deals has started rolling out to more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, “including the U.K., France, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan and Korea, along with support for more than 60 languages.”
Build your travel plans with Canvas in AI Mode
Search’s AI Mode gained ‘Canvas’ back in July this year, which is essentially a dynamic side panel for you to organize important plans and projects. It retains information, allowing you time to pick up where you left off in subsequent sessions, and add to your plans as you go.
According to Google, you can now use Canvas to build and refine travel plans that are customized for your needs. You can tell AI Mode about the type of trip you’re planning to go on and the recommendations you’re looking for, and then tap Create with Canvas.
Help me plan a girl’s trip to Phoenix with 3 friends — Marach 6-9, we want to be in an area walkable to nightlife. We want to go on a couple of different hikes, try some good brunch places, and find some thrift or antique shops.
Once created, the Canvas will highlight all relevant real-time information, including flights, hotels, photos, reviews, and other helpful information from sites across the web.
Travel planning support in Canvas is available now to desktop users in the US with the AI Mode experiment enabled in Labs.
More agentic help is on the way
Credit:Â Google
Soon after rolling out AI-powered help to check whether a product that you’re looking for is in stock nearby or not, Google is rolling out the ability to turn plans into proper bookings with agentic AI.
Google’s AI Mode can now register your conversational restaurant reservation queries and “search across multiple reservation platforms and websites to find real-time availability for options that meet your criteria.”
So, for example, you should be able to add a prompt like “find me a dinner reservation in Little Havana next Saturday for 5 people with local cuban food and live music,” and the AI tool should be able to give you a rundown of some of the best matches, complete with reservation integration with partners like OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster, StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats, Booksy, Fresha and Vagaro.
Agentic booking for restaurants is rolling out in the US this week. The tech giant added that in the future, it will be possible to finish booking flights and even hotels, directly in AI Mode. When, though, is currently unclear.
