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Travel Technological Essenceist #181: Intent

Travel Technological Essenceist #181: Intent

Some stories in this issue revolve around intention. We are moving from static input to dynamic signals and it is obvious that we are not paying enough attention. Intent is the reason for moving the needle. If attention is difficult, then decryption intention is the next level.

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Google DeepMind Just Unveiled Genie 3has made a significant leap in the AI-generated environment. It can create detailed, accessible worlds in real time from text prompts such as “a rainy street in Venice,” “hiking the Himalayas” or “flying over a coastal cliff.” It then allows you to interact within 24 fps with amazing consistency.

The elves can be the basis for the next generation of travel planning, training and storytelling. You can simulate destinations, navigation routes, test hotel workflows and train agents, all with rich, synthetic environments inside. It's not ready yet, but it shows the direction of spatial computing, embodied AI and content generation.

This is the building for the next interface.

Quickly: A bicycle enthusiast is driving on a narrow road on the edge of a cliff in India, Killar-Kishtwar Road. The real world, first person, can only see the handle. source: Deep state

New data According to Pew, when Google displays a summary generated by AI, the user is less likely to click. Among 900 tracked users, when AI digest appears, link clicks dropped from 15% to 8%. Clicking the digest's reference source only happens 1% of the time. After seeing the AI overview, more users also completely ended their sessions. The most common sources are Wikipedia, Reddit, and YouTube. Overall, about one in 5 Google searches now include an AI summary. Most of the summary (88%) cites three or more sources, but these sources have very little traffic. mention ≠ click.

according to power Founder Brennen Bliss, AI summary appears Way One in five people tend to be one in five, such as “the best place to visit in winter” and other mountain pass searches. Destination content is scratching and summarizing, and traffic is declining.

Brunson is seeing Smart travel marketers have changed their strategies in three ways:
→Preferring to pre-read content. AI can summarize the guide, but booking cannot be completed.
→ Quote in the summary. New page 1 mentioned
→Double the bottom inflow term. Queries like “Watching Whales in San Diego” can still be driven to click.

Eric Schmidt believes that traditional user interfaces are on the way out. WIMP models (Windows, Icons, Menu, Pull-down) were designed in Xerox Parc 50 years ago. In the age of AI proxy, interfaces will not be fixed; they will be formed by user intentions rather than static design.

Google is ready to expand advertising in its conversational AI search experience and marks a fundamental shift from keyword-based targeting to contextual conversational targeting. Google is briefing organizations and brands on how ads work in AI mode, targeting ads not only based on user queries, but also targeting ads for the entire context of AI conversations. With more than 100 million users already participating in the AI model and advertising will be expanded by the fourth quarter of this year, travel brands optimized for a complete dialogue environment can better attract power travelers. Read + Search Engine Land

I've met This crash Vinod Khosla's pitch deck method. His core principle is that you have to maximize the message to key ratio. Each pixel must win its own position. Anything that weakens the story belongs to the appendix or trash. Some of his rules:

  • Title is news, not topic (“market opportunities” become “$12B issues that every CEO complains”)

  • Narrative beats the data. Stories make people, not charts. Unless the chart tells a story.

  • Attract emotions, especially fear and greed. Logic will not touch money.

  • You have 5 minutes. VCs raised their determination early and used the rest of the court to justify their decision.

YC has just released 2025 Fall Startup RequestThis is a clear signal that the direction of early interest is moving forward. The focus is on AI-based startups. Some topics that stand out:

  • AI-driven vocational training. The AI boom requires more than engineers…it requires skilled businessmen. YC is looking for startups that use AI, AR/VR and simulations and retrain electricians, welders and technicians in weeks rather than years. An AI bootcamp for hands-on work.

  • Video as the original calculation. YC sees videos become real-time, personalized and cheap. Product demos you star in, lists of furniture staged, and Tiktoks made for one audience.

  • This 10-person, $100B company. AI makes small teams move like giants. The new benchmark is income per employee.

  • AI-NATIANITE Enterprise Software. YC is looking for the core tools of workflows. Sales platform writes and improves human resources systems for email, screening and interviews, accounting software that fills the data gaps in smart prompts. Tracking system and implement.

Ryanair publishedDelay alliance“Ranking of the worst air traffic control systems in Europe. Airline said that despite fewer flights than the pandemic, the ATC delays have become increasingly severe and have mismanaged the European Commission and national transport ministers. Read + ryanair

The airline said that despite flying less than the pandemic, delays are getting worse and worse, and the tone is pure Ryanair, frustration is more than just their frustration. Delays not only cause inconvenience to travelers; they disrupt schedules, increase costs, and mess up everything downstream. If you are building anything that touches real-world logistics, especially in air travel, consider infrastructure as a risk variable, especially in Europe. You can design the perfect trip, but if the plane doesn't take off on time, the whole thing will collapse.

Greg Isenberg shares a practical AI startup script. No fundraising. No hype. It's just real pain, first handled manually, and then replaced with AI. He calls it the “leverage agent” model:

  1. First, manually solve boring high friction B2B problems (such as transferring PASSPORT information from PDF to booking system, chasing hotel confirmation group trips, manually refunding airline taxes, consolidating cross-currency supplier invoices, pulling accessibility data from existing lists…)

  2. Use this deep environment with AI proxy automation.

  3. Continue to price the service level now mainly software.

  4. Once you have gained traction, you will be layered into the production layer.

It's not flashy, but it's a clear path to $100,000-$500,000 ARR No Venture capital. This is especially important for travel: such a repetitive workflow, human bottlenecks and legacy backend running.

If you are looking for a startup idea, you may be able to forget the pitch deck. Find the pain, do it yourself, and automate it. Many AI-local winners will be “Workflow-Orst” and not always “product first”.

Good WSJ profile on Patrick Quayle, the executive behind Manchester United's cyber strategy. Over the past year, they have launched routes to Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Nuuk (Greenland) and Palma de Mallorca…alternative, but intentionally move based on demand data, credit card spending, and trends on Instagram. The team tracks content signals (such as the “White Lotus” bump in Thailand) and a 10-year fleet plan. Read + WSJ

A man walks dog in snow-covered downtown Nuuk.

Manchester United will soon start flying from above Newark to Nuuk in Greenland. Source: WSJ.

In my April In-depth dive 22I noticed the company closed for 2024 with a $500 million GMV and 3,192 member partners. Just three months later, They reported The $372 million GMV in the first half of 2025, trading increased by 187% in one year. Their membership network has grown by 40% to 4,458 partners. They have also launched new tools such as script builder and map buttons, expanded to Asia with Agoda Via Via, partnered with Riot Games, Phocuswright and Travel Massive, and grew their team by 50%. Stay22 is increasingly becoming an important part of the infrastructure that drives the economy for travel creators.

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Mauricio Prieto