If research is to be believed, more than half of leisure travellers now use artificial intelligence to plan, book or navigate their trips. The trend represents the fastest behavioural shift in travel in 10 years, according to a new report by Phocuswright.
The report found that 56% of travellers used AI for at least one trip in the past 12 months, up sharply from 43% in late 2025 and 33% in the first half of the year. That’s more than double the share in 2024.
Most travellers said they did not consider AI answers alone sufficient for decision making and clicked through to the original source.
It should be noted that Phocuswright is the same organization which predicted 25 years ago the complete demise of travel agents as the launch of OTAs provided a direct booking channel to consumers.
Research by Phocuswright, The AI Surge: Travel's Fastest Behavioral Shift in a Decade, shows overall AI use among travellers – not limited to travel tasks – has climbed to 59%. Among travellers who use AI, 94% use it for travel specifically.
“AI has crossed the threshold from curiosity to utility,” said Pete Comeau, managing director of Phocuswright. “Travellers are past the point of experimenting now – they’re integrating AI into the core of how they research their trips.
“This is a structural shift, and it’s happening faster than anything we’ve tracked in the past decade.”
The report found generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini have surged to 33% usage for trip research, quintupling since 2024 and closing in on general search engines at 35%. Yet travellers still verify what they see: only 8% said AI answers alone were sufficient and 51 % typically clicked through to source websites.
Among Canadians, British Columbia travellers had the highest adoption rate, with 51% of B.C. travellers using AI for trip planning, particularly to compare prices and build itineraries, according to a recent Blue Cross Travel Study. That study cautions that while 81% of Canadians are excited about using AI in travel, only 4% fully trust it and 47% find it impersonal.
“This violates the common narrative of a zero-click world,” said Mike Coletta, Phocuswright’s senior manager of research and innovation. “AI is definitely reducing clickthrough in search overall, but travel is much more resilient because it’s higher stakes and verification-heavy.”
Travellers who double check AI results are wise. Jonas Muthoni, an AI expert who’s analyzed thousands of AI-generated content pieces, put ChatGPT to the test for a Kenya trip. The bot confidently recommended Maasai Mara during peak migration — but skipped an important detail: seasonal road closures made several lodges inaccessible.
It’s not an isolated case. Research by SEO Travel, a UK digital marketing agency, found that 90% of AI-generated itineraries contained at least one error. The inaccuracies can result from technical issues within the model such as insufficient or biased data, knowledge gaps or commercial bias.
Milton Brown, who manages digital marketing budgets, tested ChatGPT for a recent trip. It recommended hotels 40% more expensive than equally rated alternatives.
“Those properties had aggressive marketing campaigns targeting the exact keywords the AI was trained on,” Brown said.
Millennials lead in adoption of AI use to plan travel at 74%, but the growth is broad-based. Usage among Gen Z reached 72%, Gen X hit 50% and Baby Boomers more than doubled their adoption in six months, rising to 27% from 13%.
Travellers also increasingly rely on AI once they arrive at their destinations. More than half, 51%, used AI for recommendations of what to do and 95% rated it helpful for in-destination tasks such as navigation, learning about neighborhoods and managing reservations.
