AI are influencers are here & no-one really likes them

A few articles this week on AI influencers, mainly sparked by the German Tourism Board decision to have an AI avatar called Emma front their latest campaign. 

A sample of the first comments on the post include: “😂 wtf? there is so much wrong on this campaign & with this country”; “This is sad” & “F🔥ck AI.”

In the Washington Post article titled “AI travel influencers are here. Human travelers hate it” the tourism board replied to the Post by saying “Emma was “part of our ongoing efforts to stay at the forefront of digital innovation in tourism” and to “ensure we’re dynamically meeting the needs of the modern traveler.”

Marketing expert Angeli Gianchandani told the post that this was a great idea because “These AI influencers are quick, and they eliminate travel expenses, the accommodations, the talent fees,” Does Angeli also think AI would make a great marketing expert I wonder…. ?

Meanwhile German tour guide and real person Kirstin Hertel-Dietrich said ““In a world where you really have to be careful about fake news, fake images and fake voices, this is the worst possible way to promote digitization,”

At Videreo our mission is to help real human travel creators make a full time living out of doing the work they love. We use AI to make that process simpler for people to make a decent living, not to cut them out of the picture by having fake people who have never experienced anything, take away their living.

If you are real travel creator, Check out more here to make your social video library searchable & shoppable straight from your link-in-bio for an always on passive income stream that gives attribution metrics back to brands.

This content is provided by the newsletter sponsor Videreo.com

AI summaries surge in Google search results for travel

SearchEngineland are reporting this week that there has been a surge in results showing Google AI Overviews, specifically for travel related queries.

“Google AI Overviews are now showing for 30% of travel-related queries, as of the end of October, according to the latest findings from enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge. The presence of AI Overviews increased by 700% from September to October.”

The article asks why you should care before going on and giving the (obvious) answer: “Google is now answering more specific travel questions (e.g., “things to do in [city], “family-friendly activities in [city]”) so it will be important to watch whether this impacts your traffic and whether Google is citing your brand.”

You can (and should) access the full report in the article.

You might also want to revisit Jared Alster’s article from last week’s newsletter.

Perplexity releasing shopping mode

Lots of people were excited this week about Perplexity releasing their shopping mode.

I guess I can see how an AI native company going after Amazon could be exciting.

Personally, however I think if this is the door everyone starts running for then that is a pretty dull conclusion to a powerful technology. Right up there with an AI that is so clever it can add opaqueness and confusion in order to insert ads everywhere which is the other killer business model of our times.

AI is the key to self service

A bit of a press release but the numbers are pretty staggering as the NASDAQ listed Verint is spruiking that a client using their AI Intelligent Voice Assistans lifted containment within the self-service area from 10% to 50%.

If remaining consistent across 12 months this would lead to “$10 million in annual savings.”

The client switched from “… a legacy touch-tone IVR for self-service across 4 million calls annually.”

Sounds like something to crow about!

Sound advice from Thayer Ventures on playing the AI card

A really great piece from Chris Hemmeter from Thayer Ventures on sticking to the fundamentals in your pitch on your AI powered startup rather than getting “carried away by the genAI frenzy”.

Hemmeter who evaluates startups on a daily basis says the good ones he is seeing “..all share the common thread of creative solutions to real problems and strategies that speak to the almost insurmountable challenge of economically acquiring customers at scale.”

When it comes to your pitch Hemmeter says “The pitch needs to be focused on a novel solution to a clear pain point, unit economics, go-to-market strategies and domain expertise of the founding team, rather than architecture, latency and data flywheel improvement rates.”

Hemmeter thinks the big opportunities might be in helping companies clean up their data so it is useful when combined with Gen AI tech. This seems a major pain point for the industry at large.

Some final advice: “a solid business plan and development roadmap is still going to get you noticed as much as what you claim your startup can do. AI is almost always part of the story but rarely ever the story itself.”

AI is (social) listening

Turkiye this week announced they are using AI to do some social listening on what is happening out in the field of Turkish tourism.

“Türkiye’s Culture and Tourism Ministry employs an AI-powered system to track visitor satisfaction in the country’s touristic regions in a bid to identify areas for development.” reported Hurriyet Daily.

The program is actually very similar to one previously reported here which was developed by the UNDP in Zanzibar.

“Through the analysis of over 1 million data points on social media, this software detects favorable or unfavorable discussions on the country and evaluates an average of 33,000 news stories every day,” said Sinan Türkseven, deputy general manager of Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA)

If you think someone (or everyone) you know or work with could grow from being more informed on the topic of ai + travel (or could use the training above) then please forward this email to them and they can click the button below:

Willingness to use AI rises to 98% in Thailand; Indonesia

Siteminder this week released some stats around adoption of AI based on a report from “Kantar in August 2024, surveying more than 12,000 travellers in 14 of the world’s largest tourism markets.”

“SiteMinder’s data exposes stark contrasts in openness to AI, with strong adoption in Thailand and Indonesia (98% each), China (96%), and India (94%), compared to lower levels in Canada, Australia (62%), Germany, France, and the UK (63% each).”

In some good news for human travel agents: “Notably, Millennial (28-43) bookings through travel agents have grown from 11% to 18% in the last year.”

The philosophy of AI

Recently departed VP of Marketing at San Francisco Tourism, Dan Rosenbaum this week laid down some philosophical thoughts around the use of AI:

“I've been thinking about AI all wrong. It's not about efficiency.

It's about meaning. (Thanks Every Inc.) The real power of AI isn't in doing less. It's in doing more of what matters.

Think about it: When you use AI to handle routine tasks, What do you do with that freed-up energy? → Have deeper conversations → Tackle complex problems → Explore creative ideas → Focus on human connections

The question isn't "How can AI make me more efficient?" It's "How can AI help me find more meaning in my work?" Because meaning drives excellence. Not speed.

Stop optimizing for efficiency. Start optimizing for impact.”

There is something in the for all of us!

Slack Group!

Where is Tony?

Well I’m now hunkered down on the far side of the planet in Melbourne.

Everyone else I know seems to be at the PhocusWright conference this week. (FOMO).

And a few more I know will be at the Future Travel Summit next week in Barcelona. Adrian will be there for anyone interested in having their brand connect with travel influencers in a way that gets you solid attribution (via Videreo.) It’s a half-a-trillion-dollar opportunity don’t you know!

The Everything AI in Travel marketplace is now launched - please just jump on the site to grab your listing if you have an AI tool or service that you want the industry to know about.

Most clicked last week was the link to the Videreo.com piece on LinkedIn! Great to see the interest!

That’s it - you’ve made it to the end of this edition. I’ll be putting the result of the most clicked post in next week’s edition so you can see where others are focusing. If I’ve missed something, you’ve got a tip or any feedback at all - you can simply reply to this email and it will come straight to me. I’m doing this for You so please don’t be shy to tell me what you think