Skift Take
No one truly knows how generative AI will shake up the travel industry. Will Google stick with advertising instead of booking? Meanwhile, Booking feels it has advantages as a booking site.
It's not without its tensions, but Google and Booking Holdings have long had a mutually beneficial relationship: Google gets billions of dollars from Booking's ads, and Booking benefits from all of the customers Google sends along.
Booking CFO David Goulden was asked Wednesday at an investor conference about the risk that Google could eventually release a "next-gen travel assistant." Would travelers use that first before Booking's own tools?
Goulden argued that Google will stick with travel advertising and won't get into bookings, an area where Booking has bu