Travel Advisor AI Adoption Rose Sharply Through 2025
Agency use of generative and agentic AI tools increased as travel professionals sought to automate workflows.
Updated on Oct. 5, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence
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Data from Travelsavers and NEST advisors showed that the number of travel professionals using AI jumped to 59% in 2025, up from 22% in 2023. By 2025, only 7% of surveyed advisors reported they were not using AI and did not want to, a significant decline from 24% in 2023.
Why it matters
Travel advisors are increasingly adopting AI to set goals, plan complex itineraries, and automate client lead generation. This shift reflects a broader professional embrace of tools that can execute tasks independently rather than merely generating text or images.
Advisors using AI rose from 22% in 2023 to 59% in 2025, while the percentage of those refusing to use the technology dropped from 24% to 7%. The effectiveness of these tools was demonstrated by Favorite Grampy Travels, which saw monthly website impressions grow to nearly 2 million compared to 179,000 prior to March 2026.
The players
Travelsavers
A travel marketing organization that provides technology and sales support to independent travel advisors.
NEST
A network for independent travel advisors focused on marketing and business development.
Favorite Grampy Travels
A travel agency based in Leesburg, Virginia, that implemented AI for website optimization.
The details
Agencies employ generative AI—systems trained to create content like text, photos, and videos—to populate marketing materials and optimize web presence. The newer agentic AI, introduced in 2024, adds capabilities for planning, reasoning, and taking independent actions to execute complex workflows. By integrating these systems, firms like Favorite Grampy Travels and Latitude 21 Travel have automated lead generation and content production.
Timeline
2022: Generative AI was introduced.
2023: Travelsavers and NEST conducted an advisor survey.
2024: Agentic AI was introduced.
March 2026: Favorite Grampy Travels began website optimization.
September 2026: Travel Market conference was held.
The Tech Race
The widespread move toward AI-driven travel planning follows the industry-wide focus seen at the September 2026 Travel Market conference. This transition marks a shift from experimental adoption toward established, agentic-based workflows across international agency networks.
Travel advisors are using these tools to handle high volumes of client inquiries and website traffic, as seen in the near 10-fold increase in impressions for agencies like Favorite Grampy Travels. While specific pricing for these enterprise tools varies, the sector-wide trend suggests that advisors without AI integration will face increasing competition in lead generation.
The takeaway
The travel industry has moved decisively toward agentic AI as a standard operational requirement. Future tracking should focus on the fall of 2026, when further declines in non-AI adoption are projected to reshape the baseline for agency competition.
What happens next
The percentage of advisors not using AI is expected to decrease further by the fall of 2026 as agentic AI capabilities continue to integrate into agency workflows.
Further reading
Explore more on how automation is reshaping industry standards in our Artificial Intelligence section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Travel Weekly.
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