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Meta’s Andromeda system is blowing up Reddit with angry marketers

People love to say the quiet bits out loud on Reddit. And this week they weren’t holding back in their frustration that their paid marketing efforts on which they rely to make a living had totally broken.

“I’ve been managing five websites since 2020. I’ve seen good times, bad times, technical headaches, scaling issues, but never have I lost as much money as I have since the end of this summer.”

Now might be a good time to check in with your own team because we know this is how much of travel treats demand generation, from the big 4 who dropped $17.8B on “marketing” (yes not all Meta, Google gets its half too) through to DMO’s and down to SMB’s. I suspect some are really wondering WTAF right now.

“Meta completely broke something. The update literally destroyed my performance overnight. CPMs went up, CTRs tanked, conversions vanished.” It wasn’t just one post or thread. Reddit was blowing up.

I found this on LinkedIn which gave a bit of the explanation and how AI was both the problem and the answer. David Gross explained “Without (content) volume, you're not leaving performance on the table…you're locked out of entire audience pools. That means that ad volume requirements have gone from iterative to exponential. You now have to feed the beast for the algo to do its thing. The math doesn't work. You can't 10× your creative team or output the “old fashioned way”.

Gross was saying the only way to get the new Andromeda system to go back to performing was to feed it as many creative concepts as you can – and this can only be done with AI. Checkmate.

Except in travel – AI content can equal untrustworthy. Last week we reported a whole sector pledged to not do it. But what if they run their business off of Meta ads?

SEO is on a steep 2-year decline. Meta ads have stopped working. No-one knows what the new Google pay-to-play in a LLM chatbot world looks like.

Meanwhile Intrepid are doing this. Carpe Diem are doing this, Holiday Pirates are doing this and the Palau National Tourism Board are doing this. They are building relationships with creators and building their content banks.

What is really risky is not diversifying your marketing mix. Are you at risk?

Videreo (that’s “vid-air-e-oh”, if you’re wondering) is a travel platform powered by AI that turns creator content into bookable destination guides, delivering creators commissions and brands actionable data on what drives clicks.

Contact me to learn more.

This content is provided by the newsletter sponsor Videreo.com

Google kicks off agentic bookings

When will agentic bookings actually become a thing? Turns out the answer is this week!

“Google’s AI Mode is starting to roll out agentic booking for restaurants, event tickets, and wellness appointments to eligible U.S. Search Labs users.” reported Search Engine Journal. “This update enables AI Mode to find and book restaurant reservations, event tickets, and wellness appointments across multiple websites.”

Tickets in this case means concert tickets. At time of print I’d yet to hear of any tour tickets being booked this way. But that wont be far away.

Sundar Pichai basically told us himself on this weeks earnings call: “We're working on multiple agentic experiences across key verticals such as travel, commerce shopping and so on,”

The comments that came through on this topic when I mentioned it on LinkedIn (where I break news like this live if you can’t wait until end of the week – and sometimes, you just can’t really afford to wait…) included Lori Timony who said “… this is not OTA centric behavior. AI Mode is searching various sources but funneling the booking directly to the suppliers site. Clearly early days but good news for suppliers none the less. Warning to suppliers: you have no more time to clean your data and differentiate your offer. The time is here!”

As I replied to Lori – they may actually just be searching their Google Business listings where they know the data is already well lined up. They never tell us how the sausage is made but those selling tickets need to be on high alert right now.

Tourise in Saudi Arabia to demonstrate the agentic future of travel

While many receiving this email are probably still nursing their WTM hangovers, next week in Saudi Arabia we will be looking very soberly at “Agentic Tourism, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered operating model that sets new standards for AI-driven destination innovation” as part of the Tourise event.

Here is a summary from the report produced by Globant alongside the Tourise organisers including Minister of Tourism and Chairman of the Board of TOURISE, Ahmed Al-Khateeb and produced in conjunction with Kearney:

Here are 5 succinct takeaways from the “Tourism’s AI Takeover: Reinventing Travel through Agentic Tourism” report:

AI is reshaping tourism at scale: The industry generated $10.9 trillion in 2024 (10% of global GDP) and is on track to hit $16.5 trillion by 2035. The AI in tourism market is forecast to grow from $3.37B in 2024 to $13.86B by 2030 (26.7% CAGR).
“Agentic Tourism” is the new operating model: It envisions AI agents working under human governance to automate friction and amplify human-led experiences across five archetypes — Experience Maximizer, Operations Optimizer, Regeneration Guardian, Wellness Agent, and Opportunity Connector.
Open, interoperable ecosystems are critical: The report urges the creation of an Agentic Tourism Coalition and Agent Travel Protocol (ATP) to avoid fragmented, closed “walled gardens” and ensure global collaboration and standards.
Trust and governance are central: Adoption depends on transparent frameworks like the Trust Ladder and Delegation Contract, which define how much autonomy travelers and operators give AI systems while maintaining accountability.
Transformation requires phased implementation: A 24–36 month roadmap is outlined—starting with pilot projects and upskilling staff for “Amplify” roles—culminating in a global interoperable ecosystem built on open protocols and human-centered innovation.

The report will be discussed in depth at the event.

New AI jobs at IHG

If you follow Skift founder, Rafat Ali on LinkedIn you’ll know he loves to sift through the job ads, not because he wants a job but he believes you can learn a lot about what companies are up to by the positions they hire.

This week he found IHG resorts hiring an SVP of Enterprise AI role at $325K+ (which is probably par for the course in organisations of this size but what I thin really caught Rafat’s eye was the callout for “a 10-week student internship for their “AI Integration Squad”.

As Rafat explained: “The wild card: bringing students from law, marketing, and design into an AI squad to experiment with AI across operations, marketing, and HR suggests IHG knows this isn’t just a tech problem, it is a business model issue.”

Also smart.

It’s time to get educated on AI

Travolution this week had a story about how ‘AI for Travel’ business SystemsX will implement travel training for students undergoing programs at the The Institute of Travel & Tourism (ITT).

“Students studying travel and tourism related courses at more than 35 universities and colleges will have access to an exclusive ITT version of the SystemsX Sense AI platform.

This will enable students studying for a career in travel and tourism to learn, practice and develop their sales and customer service skills via role play and interactive learning with their lecturers and peers.”

That’s awesome for students!

For the rest of us – this newsletter Everything AI in Travel this week launched its own education program alongside Santiago Rodriguez PHD. Over the next 10 weeks Sanitago will deliver a 15 minute mini class each week to demonstrate how YOU can use AI right now to add value to your business or upskill yourself for your career.

The course is TOTALLY FREE. It is delivered through the Everything AI in Travel podcast. Subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for your easy listening pleasure to not miss this chance to get the knowledge you need to get and stay ahead in this time of high flux.

Cost is no longer an excuse.

Seed strapping takes hold in AI startups

Anyone raising a pre-seed round these days has probably already achieved Seria A type metrics in their traction and an article in Hotel News Resource this week says, that’s potentially as far as many might need to go in terms of funding.

IF you’re not familiar with the term, this is “where companies use AI to scale quickly and achieve profitability with minimal funding rounds. This approach allows founders to retain more equity and avoid the traditional VC cycle. While this may not align with VC expectations for large-scale outcomes, it presents opportunities for strategic acquisitions and life-changing exits for founders.”

“The focus has shifted from technical moats to distribution and customer access. Investors are now more discerning, seeking business models that promise sustainable growth and real-world problem-solving capabilities.” which sounds sensible.

“The "construct and convict" strategy, as highlighted by Chris Hemmeter of Thayer Investment Partners, exemplifies this approach, emphasizing smaller initial investments followed by larger commitments to promising ventures.”

If you think someone (or everyone) you know or work with could grow from being more informed on the topic of ai + travel (or could use the training above) then please forward this email to them and they can click the button below:

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Marketplace Spotlight: Align Systems

QnAsheet is a game-changing AI chatbot for my agency's tourism clients. It is incredibly powerful, is able to generate very accurate and complex answers to an unending variety of questions, all with the right brand voice for each client.

Vic's configuration of my client's chatbot and training for my team was clear, easy, and fully dialed in. We were able to iterate, test, and manage the entire QnAsheet system quickly. Vic is super responsive to any questions and goes above and beyond to make sure we are using the full power of the AI chatbot.

And the value is exceptional, with pricing well below competitors while delivering full functionality.

Julie Thorner – Liquid Spark

Great review on this Align Systems product!

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.

Trip.com upgrade their AI tool

Shahar Goldboim, the founder and CEO of Boom wrote an op-ed on Phocuswire this week with his own predictions about winners and losers in agentic AI Tourism

“Discovery will no longer depend on how listings are displayed but on how intelligently AI interprets data, drawing from online travel agencies (OTAs), direct sites and property systems to build more relevant, tailored results.”

Goldboim believes that the platform advantage of the incumbents will fad and battle will not be fought by more engineers and bigger ad budgets!

“For independents, this will open new gateways to guests—without paying the traditional gatekeepers for access.” Goldboim offers some advice about how to get yourself ready in the article

Slack Group!

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Trying to get something sourced or built and not sure where to start or looking for an objective opinion (I’ve built systems for retail travel agencies, agentic voucher to ticket solutions and lots more); or

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Most clicked last week was the link to Expedia’s report on social + AI

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