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Mentions are the new clicks: Brennen Bliss from Propellic

Favourite of this newsletter, Brennen Bliss was at it again this week in conjunction with the release of Google’s AI mode in the UK, bringing knowledge and insight to the masses.

Bliss said “Unlike traditional search, AI Mode transforms how users interact with information, enabling them to have dynamic, multi-step conversations.” This is similar to the experience you might have right now in ChatGPT for example. This is the new norm.

But how long until it is the norm? “My prediction? This becomes the default search experience within 12 months, not the 2-3 years most people are assuming.” according to Bliss.

So what should you be doing about it?

“My recommendation: maintain visibility across the entire booking journey. Create answers for top, middle, and bottom-of-funnel intent. Make those answers succinct and clear, and reference your brand frequently. Continue testing and be ready to influence and experiment with emerging organic and paid surfaces as they become available.”

Brennen explains: “In this new landscape, ranking #1 on Google is no longer the goal. What matters is being the brand that gets mentioned — and trusted — by the AI in response to user queries. In other words, mentions are the new clicks.”

My two cents: It probably only helps so much YOU mentioning yourself! You need to widen the net on your brand mentions to build both recency and authority from trusted sources who are not just your own site.

In a recent discussion with Jason Cincotta from Kismet he told me their view is “We think there's a LOT the hotels will have to label as third party authoritative content (from press, to UGC, to reviews) in order to help AI sort fact from fiction when making recommendations.” And then more crucially “Third-party authoritative content for anything related to matters of opinion will be extremely useful to AI looking to establish fact from fiction when making recommendations….. Official content is likely to be discounted for the same reason humans rely on TripAdvisor, Travel + Leisure, etc. Third party sources help guests triangulate the truth.”

This is exactly what we are helping brands with at Videreo. By having your brand as one of those offered inside the guides made by our creator army – you’ll find yourself mentioned on social and on web for multiple long tail search queries that AI is scanning for to build its own answer. And we can do this at scale.

Videreo is the place for brands and creators to meet & create a new sales pipeline together.

Reach out if interested to know more.

This content is provided by the (interim) newsletter sponsor Videreo.com

Airbnb is finally flicking the AI switch

A couple of reports coming out of Airbnb’s Q2 earnings call with CEO Brian Chesky picked up on the fact that he mentioned “I think at Airbnb, we are going through that process right now of transitioning from a pre- generative AI app to an AI native app. We're starting to customer service. We're bringing into travel planning. So it's really setting the stage."

Chesky has been at pains in past calls to say there is no need to rush or panic on AI. But despite great fundamentals – the stock price is basically flat since IPO, so that tells you what the market thinks of wait & see.

It’s not like they’ve also been doing nothing. Chesky has previously talked about how the development teams are leveraging AI to speed up code delivery and they’ve put a lot of focus on their customer service side. Chesky framed this as starting with "the hardest problem because the stakes are high, you need to answer this quickly and the risk of hallucination is very high."

I mean…… maybe…. this started internal facing as a helper for human customer service – so maybe hard but not as high stakes as consumer facing.

Chesky also talked about what comes next in discovery and potentially booking. “The key thing is going to be for us to lead and become the first place for people to book travel on Airbnb. As far as whether or not we integrate with AI agents, I think that's something that we're certainly open to.” but then followed with “I don't think that we're going to be the kind of thing where you just have an agent or operator book your Airbnb for you because we're not a commodity.”

As for discovery, Airbnb are now working on………. trip planning!

Airbnb wants to stay in control of its contact with the customer and Chesky talked about needing to be a logged in and verified user for example.

His final comment almost thrown out a whim was what really raised my eyebrows: “But I do think it (AI) could potentially be a very interesting lead generation for Airbnb." Here we are in firm agreement!

McKinsey weighs in on stalled AI adoption

Consulting firm McKinsey this week released some content around adoption challenges on Gen AI in businesses.

AI is not just a tech shift (and definitely not a “tech department” thing). It is a cultural shift.

Here is how GPT broke down what McKinsey had to say:

Adoption gap – While 90% of employees report using generative AI at work (21% heavily), only 13% consider their organization an early adopter, creating a widening gap between potential and actual enterprise use.

AI natives vs. leadership lag – Younger “AI natives” are already using gen AI in daily workflows, but leaders hesitate over governance and cost, echoing past lags seen with cloud, social, and mobile adoption—only now the competitive window is much shorter.
Speed and scale urgency – The shift from AI as a competitive advantage to a competitive necessity is happening far faster than past tech transitions, making rapid adoption a determinant of future industry leaders.
Gardener’s mindset – Instead of top-down, rigid “carpenter” planning, leaders should identify and nurture grassroots AI innovations already producing results, then refine and scale them.
Incentives for learning – Effective adoption requires both financial and social incentives that reward skill-building, sharing knowledge, and experimentation—embedding innovation into daily rituals rather than relying solely on annual events.

I help companies to navigate these issues by the way so yell out if you need a hand on your organisation.

Fora acquires AI startup Legends

One I missed from last week (sorry) was the acquisition of (AI startup) Legends by Fora.

This probably wasn’t an acquisition match I saw coming but it brings together some of the highest quality people to build more intelligence into the Fora platform. Fora raised $40M in Series C raise in April and this seems like a good way to spend some of that money.

I’d always pictured Legends as helping more consumer facing brands than Fora, where a real human agent sits between the customer and the product – but perhaps the “cutting-edge AI-powered data platform” which was touted to “revolutionize travel experiences by transforming traveler data into predictive insights.” can be used to better inform those human agents about their customers?

“The power of the Legends product to turn the data we all produce in our phones, in our emails, and in our calendars into actionable insight immediately excited the builder in me, envisioning the many ways we could deploy this across our platform,” said Jake Peters, Co-Founder and Chief Product & Technology Officer of Fora, in a press statement.

I’ve previously chatted with Stephanie Daniel on the podcast – and now might be a good time to re-visit that one if this story and the direction of Fora interests you.

“Shaina Shiwarski, who has been a Fora Advisor since early 2024, will assume the role of VP of Product, with a focus on CRM, data and personalization. Daniel will serve as GM of Legends & VP, Strategic Initiatives, continuing to develop Legends technology within Fora and through external partnerships across the travel industry.”

How the AI flux is impacting investing

Phocuswire this week dug into why we are at a 10 year low in travel tech investments at a time of high innovation through AI! What a delicious paradox (for those not trying to raise money ).

Phocuwright’s own Mike Coletta suggested it might be because “core AI/LLM companies eating up so much of the available funds.” I’m not sure about that one. Not every VC has a seat at those lofty tables. I’d suggest actually not many at all – despite the high numbers of capital being poured in. What is more likely IMO is that it is currently very uncertain whether what those huge investments are currently churning out, might just envelope everything else.

“Chris Hemmeter, managing partner at Thayer Investment Partners, said AI has rattled suppliers, intermediaries and incumbents to their core.” It could well be that things are just moving so fast that there isn’t really the time to do the research before things shift again and you need to reevaluate. We see this in the conversation of the Slack group.

Rod Cuthbert, the OG Viator founder probably sums this up best when he says ““Anyone who says they know how it'll all turn out is on drugs.”

Hemmeter offered this advice to founders: “Entrepreneurs first have to have a very strong narrative around what they're doing, and that narrative is a function of identifying a difficult to solve problem in a very large market, and then [they need] a perspective on exactly how they're solving that problem, why it's defendable and interesting.”

Which is all well and good – but what I see and hear from the hustings is that the idea of pre-seed is basically dead in today’s world. Your vision and narrative alone don’t really cut it even with a strong team. In this new world you need to run lean through to irrefutable traction and start your journey at seed or even Series A (if you can combine the traction with revenue to get through to solid product-market fit.)

Oh, and when you get there – don’t sell your equity cheaply.

Is Wingie the first AI native MCP in travel?

I received a press release this week stating that “Wingie Enuygun Group (WEG), MENA’s fastest-growing online travel marketplace, has launched the world’s first travel-focused Model Context Protocol (MCP) server.”

I don’t usually just repost paid press releases but thought this was interesting to get out into the world.

Is this true? I know Kismet are working on MCP for hotels for example. I’ve chatted to Jason Cincotta from Kismet on the podcast about it.

A Model Context Protocol is the connection that allows AI agents to quickly and efficiently find the info they are looking for without having to scrape and digest an entire human readable website. It is also pretty critical to take us to the next stage of AI infiltration, like booking things for us.

Anyhoo – apparently “WEG’s MCP implementation is a game-changer for travel automation, enabling AI models to complete transactions, not just offer recommendations. With more than 30 real-time travel tools, WEG is the first online travel marketplace with an AI-native travel infrastructure.”

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Marketplace Spotlight: Propellic – mentions are the new clicks

It was the top story!

In other Propellic news however they’ve just been named in the “Inc 5000 list—ranking among the 100 fastest-growing marketing firms in the USA and the 50 fastest-growing companies in Austin, TX”

Quality outfit!

If you have a B2B business underpinned by AI and looking for people to notice you, you can sign up to the marketplace for peanuts (top right corner, 5 mins, bring your logo).

I’ve priced for bootstrapped startups but also accepting larger companies too.

MakeMyTrip turns on AI mode

News out of India this week that MakeMyTrip have turned on their AI mode.

“Online travel booking platform MakeMyTrip has introduced an AI-powered virtual travel agent that can guide users through every step of their journey on the website, from trip planning and booking to handling post-sales queries such as cancellations and refunds, via both voice and text.”

And it can do so in both Hindi and English.

Whilst others, most notably Priceline and Trip.com have had similar services up and running for a while now, “MakeMyTrip claims that while most AI travel tools only offer suggestions to users, this tool goes a step further by helping users move from travel ideas to actually helping travellers book their travel and complete payment online – something that hasn’t been tried before. It will offer assistance not just with flights and hotels but also holiday planning, ground transport such as cabs and buses, visas and forex.”

Group Chief Technology Officer Sanjay Mohan called the product “the most ambitious build” undertaken by the company.”

Slack Group!

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This week we caught up with Richard Savoie from Adiona who is currently reinventing urban mobility, logistics, and transport planning with AI. Logisitics is some crazy hard stuff – and there is a lot of takeaways here for travel.

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Most clicked last week was the link to OpenAI’s ChatGPT5 travel demo video. It got clicked so much it nearly brought down the server!

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

Glossary

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial intelligence leverages computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind. (source IBM)

Generative AI (GAI) is a type of AI powered by machine learning (ML) models that are trained on vast amounts of data and are used to produce new content, such as photos, text, code, images, and 3D renderings. (Source Amazon)

Large Language Model (LLM) is a specialized type of artificial intelligence (AI) that has been trained on vast amounts of text to understand existing content and generate original content.

ChatGPT – Open AI’s LLM; sometimes referred to by its series number GPT3; GPT3.5 or GPT4. These are used by Microsoft & Bing.

Gemini – Google’s suite of LLM.

If wanting to go even deeper into the AI lexicon – check out this handy guide created by Peter Syme for the tours & activity sector