ITB 2026: The Real AI Revolution in Tourism is not Technology. It’s Trust
The infrastructure for AI-driven travel booking is already emerging. The real question is who travelers and suppliers will trust to operate it. Learnings from #ITBBerlinConvention 2026.
James Waters (Booking.com), Piero Sierra (Skyscanner), Garry Wiseman (Sabre), James Byers (Google) and Dirk Rogl (Travel.Commerce., from right to left) discuss how travel will become AI-native at the #ITBBerlinConvention 2026.
The moment AI became real for tourism
#ITBBerlinConvention 2026 is over. AI dominated the conversation. From startup stages to ministerial roundtables, from technology panels to strategy debates across the exhibition floors, artificial intelligence was the defining topic of this year’s ITB Berlin. It has been an amazing experience to be a host of such an event.
The overall theme of the convention could hardly have been more fitting: “Leading Tourism into Balance.” Because the AI revolution now unfolding in travel has the potential to fundamentally reshape the industry, likely more profoundly than any technological shift we have seen in the past two decades.
AI agents are moving from inspiration to execution. Platforms are preparing the infrastructure for agentic commerce. And the possibility of automated travel booking is moving from theory to reality. In other words, the emerging technology could truly shake the foundations of tourism distribution.
The real question is how tourism can lead this transformation into balance. Based on the debates, panels, and many conversations at the #ITBBerlinConvention 2026, five key insights stand out, which may help tourism professionals navigate the next phase of the AI revolution.
Five learnings that can help lead tourism into balance.
1. Agentic Shopping Is Knocking on the Door of Travel Distribution
Agentic shopping is no longer theoretical. AI agents are beginning to move from inspiration to execution, searching, comparing, and completing bookings on behalf of travelers.
At the #ITBBerlinConvention, this shift became very tangible. On the #AITrack, Google’s Stefan Ebener demonstrated what the next generation of AI agents could look like: a system able to search travel options, negotiate prices according to personal preferences, and complete the checkout automatically:
Ready for Agentic Commerce. Google’s Stefan Ebener displayed all the new features for retail. Coming to travel likely very, very soon…
The entire booking process could soon be handled by an AI agent, including a budget agent (up from min 21 in the video above), negotiating the perfect travel budget up to personal preferences.
This only works if travelers are willing to delegate decisions and transactions to a digital intermediary. Which brings us back to the central point: Agentic travel booking will only work if users trust their AI agent.
2. The Experimentation Phase is ending. The AI Race has begun.
For the past two years, much of the travel industry has been experimenting with AI. According to Mitra Sorrells, SVP Research at Phocuswright, 83% of travel companies worldwide are already using AI. But only 13% invest more than 20% of their technology budget into it. “The majority is still in experimentation mode.”
End of experimentation mode: Phocuswright’s Mitra Sorrells puts all the relevance into 12 minutes only.
But that phase is coming to an end. The next step is clear: AI-driven personalization at scale. And one of the most important enablers may not be AI itself, but verified digital identity. Initiatives such as the emerging EU Digital Identity could become a key infrastructure layer for trusted AI interactions.
Without verified digital identities, the industry risks rushing into an agentic Wild West, where autonomous agents interact, transact, and negotiate without clear verification. Trust, identity, and authentication will therefore become critical building blocks of the AI-driven travel ecosystem.
3. The AI Race is wide open. For a little while…
Who will benefit most from the AI revolution in travel? At #ITBBerlinConvention, we brought together four major players on one stage: Google’s James Byers, Sabre’s Garry Wiseman, Skyscanner’s Piero Sierra, and Booking.com’s James Waters. It was a remarkably aligned discussion:
The Industry View: When GDS, OTA, Metasearch, and Google are talking one language in AI. It’s all about trust.
There is little doubt that agentic shopping will soon become a central distribution channel in travel. But one question currently electrifies the industry:
Where will the AI actually sit, the agent that is allowed to book travel on behalf of the customer?
In the backend of GDS systems and fare databases? In the frontend of new consumer applications? Or centrally within ecosystems controlled by Google and other gatekeepers? In reality, the answer may be simpler: AI will sit everywhere.
Leads and bookings will ultimately emerge where AI agents earn the trust of travelers. “Trust and transparency are paramount”, said James Waters, CPO at Booking.com. Which means the race is far from decided.
4. Travel Tech must become faster. And more structured
There is hardly a travel tech company in 2026 that is not positioning itself as an AI company. Some transformations appear almost radical. Even long-established technology providers are rebranding themselves overnight as “AI-native.” Really?
The real challenge is not branding, it is architecture. Travel technology must now be redesigned around AI-driven processes: from intelligent bots to trusted infrastructure that allows autonomous agents to interact safely with travel systems.
And this applies not only to the customer interface. Even in the backend, from distribution systems to data layers, trust becomes a central design principle.
5. Trust becomes the Infrastructure of AI Travel
If there was one insight that echoed across the #ITBBerlinConvention 2026, it was this: trust will become the core infrastructure of AI-driven travel. In a world of agentic commerce, travelers will no longer interact directly with booking systems.
They will rely on AI agents acting on their behalf: searching, comparing, negotiating, and completing transactions.
This fundamentally changes the logic of travel distribution. The key question will no longer be who owns the inventory, the interface, or even the platform.
The decisive question will be: which AI agent do travelers trust to act for them? Trust will therefore operate on multiple levels:
Trust from travelers delegating decisions to AI agents
Trust from suppliers, allowing agents to access pricing and inventory
Trust in infrastructure, identity, and authentication that makes autonomous transactions possible
Go deeper into the Sessions now
All sessions of the #ITBBerlinConvention 2026 are available on YouTube. Across four stages and nearly 200 sessions, the convention explored the major forces shaping the future of global tourism.
https://www.youtube.com/@ITBBerlin/videos
If you want to understand how AI is transforming the travel industry, take a look at the AI Track and the Travel Tech Track, both powered by Travel.Commerce. These sessions capture many of the debates that will define the next phase of tourism’s digital transformation.