Skift Take
Trip.com beat its biggest competitors in the West with the release of a generative AI chatbot early this year, and the company beat them again with its first major chatbot upgrade.
Trip.com was among the first large online travel agencies to release a simple chatbot powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Now, it has released a more advanced version of its travel planning and booking chatbot, TripGenie, which includes in-app booking capabilities and more.
Singapore-based Trip.com released the tool on its mobile app on Tuesday. It's also powered by OpenAI, according to a Trip.com spokesperson.
It comes just a few days after Shanghai-based parent company Trip.com Group — which also owns Ctrip, Qunar, and Skyscanner — shared information about its proprietary large language model, called Wendao, which is in development.
The move by Trip.com Group to develop its own generative AI tech — a first for a travel company — reflects the Chinese tech industry’s effort to catch up with development in the West, according to reporting from the South China Morn