Can your AI agent sell, or does it only answer questions?
Noam Shapira explains how Via.ai connects conversations to inventory, commercial rules and the customer relationship.
Tony Carne
November 17, 2026
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From answers to a sales conversation
A travel website can return a thousand hotels. A good travel agent asks what matters, explains the trade-offs and helps someone choose.
In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel podcast, I speak with Noam Shapira, co-founder and CEO of Via.ai, about bringing that sales conversation back to travel brands through AI.
Need help finding the right AI solution for your travel business? Tell me what you are trying to solve and I will personally introduce you to someone who can help:
The interesting part is what happens behind the conversation. Via.ai connects the agent to a travel brand’s inventory, business rules and customer information. Noam describes how it can suggest a few relevant options, offer an alternative when the first request does not fit, and keep the context when the customer returns.
We discuss:
Why WhatsApp makes an AI conversation easy to start, alongside web widgets and APIs.
Why a sales agent needs live inventory and commercial rules, not just answers.
What customer conversations reveal about products a travel business does not yet offer.
How brands can prepare for direct customers and customers represented by personal AI agents.
Why building a chatbot demo and running an enterprise sales platform are different jobs.
Why complex travel decisions still happen over time, even when AI makes the interaction faster.
Noam reports cases of conversion up to five times higher than a traditional website. That is his account of customer results, not a promise that every travel brand will see the same outcome.
One of the most interesting ideas from this conversation is that the sale is only part of the value. A customer asking for an airport transfer you do not sell, or a villa your inventory cannot match, is telling you something useful about your business.
The commercial question is whether you can use that conversation to serve them better next time, rather than lose them at a blank results page.
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nstuzc0MlS4
Explore Via.ai: https://wearevia.ai/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=episode_post&utm_campaign=eait_podcast
Connect with Noam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noamshapira
Subscribe to the show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0E1Rp59gPJgGiLsCkgmpB2
Follow Tony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-carne-b8851b6/
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