At the 2026 TravelDaily Conference, Fabien Blondet, Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Amadeus, delivered a keynote titled “Creating Value in Travel with AI: From Trusted Data and Ecosystem Connectivity to Deployment at Scale.” His central message: the industry has moved past the prototype phase. The real test is embedding AI into the core transaction flows that power global travel.
“The question today is no longer whether AI can produce a prototype, but how we can take it further and enable it to truly transform the travel industry,” Blondet told attendees. He argued that while consumers are increasingly comfortable using AI for inspiration, the industry’s fragmented data landscape remains a major barrier to full-scale adoption.
According to Amadeus research, 74% of consumers have already used AI tools for travel inspiration, and more than 40% are willing to go further and use AI to book travel. Yet the travel ecosystem—airlines, hotels, airports, car rental companies, and agencies—has long operated in silos, making it difficult for travelers to book combined products in a single transaction. Blondet stressed that simply adding an “AI chat box” to the front end is not enough.
Trusted data: the foundation for AI
Blondet emphasized that AI’s effectiveness in travel depends on the quality of the data it draws from. Over the past four decades, Amadeus has accumulated more than 30 petabytes of travel-related data, including flight schedules, inventory, availability, PNRs, orders, offers, and hotel information. But data alone is not sufficient—it must be trustworthy and interoperable.
To break down data silos, Amadeus is implementing a Data Mesh approach, enabling different business areas—airlines, airports, hotels, car rental companies—to share consistent data definitions. For example, a single flight data model can be used by an airline, a travel agency, or Amadeus’ internal operations, reducing duplication and improving interoperability. Blondet noted that if AI is built on inaccurate or fragmented data, it will never become part of core business processes.
Amadeus is also strengthening AI governance, including data security, privacy protection, data sovereignty, and access permissions. The company is adapting AI technologies for travel-specific use cases, combining advanced models with trusted travel data, domain expertise, and responsible governance.
Connectivity: from conversation to transaction
Beyond data, connectivity is the second pillar. Amadeus connects a vast network of airlines, hotels, travel agencies, airports, and car rental companies worldwide. Blondet believes AI’s greatest value will come not from replacing human customer service, but from being embedded in search, booking, distribution, and operations.
Amadeus has used machine learning in search for over a decade and is now deepening AI integration. This year, the company acquired SkyLink, a US-based AI-native firm that uses conversational AI to move from search to booking. The acquisition is a strategic step toward embedding AI into the transaction process.
Amadeus is also building its own Travel AI Stack, adding AI capabilities on top of its existing shared systems and connectivity layer, while providing APIs designed for AI applications. As AI agents enter the travel industry, traditional API connectivity is evolving. Amadeus is exploring emerging protocols such as MCP and other agent-to-agent approaches to help AI agents interact with trusted travel content.
In hospitality, Amadeus is collaborating with Google on the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which connects hotel products with new AI-powered shopping and transaction channels. This could eventually allow travelers to communicate their needs directly to an AI agent, which would then assemble a complete travel offering from various suppliers.
This shift means travel companies must move from “designing interfaces for people” to “providing products and services that AI agents can access and invoke.”
Scale: the ultimate test
The third pillar is scale. Getting an AI prototype to work is relatively easy, but deploying it in a production system that handles millions of transactions daily is a different challenge. Amadeus systems currently support peak volumes of one million transactions per second, including more than 150,000 requests per second directly from customers and travelers.
Blondet concluded that AI will only become truly part of the travel industry when it can operate reliably at this scale, with trusted data and seamless connectivity. The industry’s next phase will be defined by how well it can move from “able to chat” to “able to transact.”
For travel professionals, the implications are clear: investing in data infrastructure, embracing connectivity standards, and preparing for AI-driven transactions will be critical. As the industry evolves, new growth playbooks are emerging beyond traditional traffic and scale metrics. Meanwhile, Air India’s adoption of UATP and InterGlobe’s GSA role for STARLUX highlight how connectivity and partnerships are reshaping the market.
