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OpenAI has acquired artificial intelligence-powered travel startup Odessia, with its founder Francis Davidson announcing that he will join the company to focus on shaping the future of travel.
Davidson announced the development in a post on X, expressing excitement over the acquisition and the opportunity to work with OpenAI. Im thrilled to announce that Odessia was acquired by OpenAI, and that I will be joining the team to focus on the future of travel, Davidson said in the post. Founded less than a year ago, Odessia aimed to build an AI-powered travel agent capable of helping users plan and book trips. The startup sought to use artificial intelligence to simplify travel planning and make the process of organising and booking trips more accessible. Highlighting the platform's early traction, Davidson said that Odessia had witnessed significant interest from users during the past summer. Over $60M/year of travel was planned by Odessia over the past summer by tens of thousands of early adopters, he said. The figure highlights the growing interest in AI-powered tools that can assist consumers with complex, multi-step activities such as travel planning and bookings. Davidson also thanked his team, investors, supporters and partners across the travel industry for backing the startup and helping it develop its product. The acquisition comes amid growing interest in AI agents that can go beyond answering queries and independently assist users in completing tasks. Travel planning is emerging as one of the areas where AI-powered assistants could potentially streamline the consumer experience by bringing multiple stages of trip planning into a single interface. Davidson said the company would share more details about the future direction of the initiative in the coming period. (ANI)
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