This article has been supplied and will be available for a limited time only on this website. According to McKinsey, fewer than a third of travellers have used generative AI for travel-related tasks, and 84% of those who have report that it improved their experience. South African figures follow the same shape. Under a quarter have used AI to plan a trip, and almost all of them were satisfied with the result.
What travellers use it for suggests where it goes next. General research tops the list at 54%, followed by inspiration and local food recommendations at 43% each, transport planning at 41%, itinerary building at 37% and budgeting at 31%.
Those habits form part of a broader change in how buying decisions get made, described as agentic commerce. Traditional booking journeys run through defined channels, with the traveller moving from a search engine to a comparison site to a booking page. In an AI-led journey, the questions, the narrowing down and the choice all happen in conversation.
"Agentic commerce is fundamentally changing how people discover and choose brands. As journeys become more conversational and intent-driven, companies have to rethink how they show up, not just to be found, but to be chosen, and to deliver value in that moment," says Ndidi Oteh, CEO of Accenture Song.
