Alphabet’s latest earnings call reads like a roadmap for the next era of travel planning. Google says AI is now driving real business results across Search, ads, Cloud, and consumer products, culminating in the company’s first $100 billion quarter.
For travelers and the industry that serves them, the signal is unmistakable: planning, shopping, booking, and even local mobility are moving toward agentic, conversational experiences that fuse Google’s scale with increasingly capable models.
Trip planning turns conversational
Google’s Search team described an “expansionary moment,” where AI Overviews and AI Mode are prompting people to ask more – and more complex – questions.
Those features now span 40 languages and have more than 75 million daily active users, with total queries and commercial queries both rising. In practical terms, that means travelers can pose multi-step questions – compare winter city breaks, filter by walkability, factor in budget, then refine by boutique hotels near transit – and watch the system assemble options without toggling between tabs.
Monetization is evolving to match. Google’s new AI Max in Search is already used by hundreds of thousands of advertisers and, according to the company, unlocked billions of net-new queries in the quarter. One early travel example: Kayak reported a 12% rise in conversion value after enabling AI Max while maintaining return-on-ad-spend goals.
For suppliers and OTAs, the pitch is clear: richer intent signals from longer, multi-turn queries plus creative generated in Asset Studio and Product Studio, stitched together with more granular reporting in PMax.
Behind the scenes, Gemini models are doing more of the heavy lifting. Google says its models are now processing billions of tokens per minute via API, with generative AI revenue in Cloud up more than 200% year over year. That matters for travel because the same foundation models power itinerary generation, dynamic creative for fare and rate promos, and customer support agents capable of handling complex, policy-bound interactions.
From browser to curb: the mobility layer
Planning doesn’t end at “book now,” and Google is positioning for the last mile. Waymo aims to open service in London next year and is working toward Tokyo, with U.S. expansions to Dallas, Nashville, Denver, and Seattle and new permissions at San José and San Francisco airports.
Alphabet hinted at deeper integration between Waymo and Gemini to personalize in-car experiences – think proactive coordination with flight arrivals, hotel check-ins, or restaurant reservations – and suggested 2026 will bring visible product steps in that direction.
The consumer surfaces are being reworked for this world. Chrome is getting deeper Gemini integrations; Android XR puts AI at the core of emerging headset use cases; and YouTube’s AI-powered discovery and shoppable formats continue to nudge inspiration closer to transaction.
Meanwhile, Cloud’s backlog jumped to $155 billion, with Google citing more billion-dollar AI deals signed this year than in the previous two years combined – evidence that travel’s back office (pricing, personalization, fraud, call centers) is modernizing alongside front-end search.
For the travel sector, the takeaway is twofold. First, expect trip planning to feel less like a string of searches and more like a guided conversation that spans inspiration to checkout.
Second, prepare for mobility and on-property experiences to plug into that same graph, where an agent can reflow airport rides, late check-ins, or restaurant slots around real-time changes. The competitive battleground will be who feeds these agents the best structured content, availability, and prices – consistently and at speed.
Google’s bet is that agentic workflows will grow both engagement and commercial opportunity. If the company’s Q3 momentum is any guide, 2026 could be the year those capabilities move from pilot to mainstream in travel.
