“When it comes to leveraging emerging AI models and tools, we have taken a forward-leaning experimental approach, both to enhance internal efficiencies and to power new customer-facing experiences. Currently, over 40% of our code is AI-generated”, stated Ixigo Director and Group Co-Chief Executive Officer Rajnish Kumar during the company’s Q1FY26 earnings call.

Remaining bullish on AI’s potential, Kumar claimed that agentic AI may pose risks for late adapters in the online travel agency (OTA) business. This contrasts with Ixigo, which adopted the technology in 2017 with its agentic travel assistant TARA and later ventured into other use cases. These include real-time fare trackers, price prediction agents, and autonomous web checking agents delivering boarding passes to users’ Apple or Google Wallets, among others.

Monetising other technologies

Building on AI integrations, stakeholders also questioned the impact of Ixigo’s travel guarantee feature on its flight ticketing business. Launched in the last quarter of FY25, this feature allows customers to avail refunds and discounts on alternate modes of transportation in cases of unconfirmed tickets.

While executives refrained from disclosing any financial metrics, they claimed that, given the low base of market penetration in this segment, there is still significant growth potential. This complements features like the travel guarantee, which could lead to potential upselling opportunities.

Impact of changes by IRCTC

Elsewhere, stakeholders discussed the impact of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation’s (IRCTC) recent changes on Ixigo’s train segment business. In response, officials explained that there were three primary changes with varying levels of impact. Firstly, the aspect of reverting back to a delay time of 30 minutes from 10 minutes in Tatkal booking introduced some volatility. Secondly, while Aadhaar linking with Tatkal ticket booking remains fairly recent, it has had a slight impact on train bookings. And thirdly, executives opined that the preparation of seating charts eight hours in advance instead of four hours impacts booking volumes positively. However, they cautioned that the full consequences of the changes and their impact on consumer behaviour would take time to ascertain.

Decline in contribution margin percentage

Notably, investments in cross-selling products, such as the travel guarantee, led to a decrease in the contribution margin percentage. For context, this value dropped to 40.7% in the quarter from 47.7% in Q1FY25. Within this, the train segment contributed 32% to the overall contribution margin.

Growth in the bus segment

Elsewhere, analysts inquired whether external factors, such as elections, contributed to the growth in the bus business. While executives argued against any such events leaving a persistent impact, they referenced improvements in product for its growth in the past three quarters. This includes features like bus insights and the new Edge platform that translate into customer trust and conversion rate in bookings.

Perspective on the hotel business and ‘MICE’ activities

While Ixigo remains a new entrant into the hotel business, executives contended that the ‘room nights’ booked metric is displaying a strong month-on-month growth. Currently, the vertical remains focused on tackling the unsolved customer pain areas and supply-side problems, aiming to improve customer experience, the management added.

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Differently, analysts queried officials on any plans to launch a B2B vertical with corporate tie-ups akin to their competitors. Without providing any specific timelines, executives expressed optimism around entry into these verticals in the future. For context, Ixigo’s rival Yatra saw a 103% year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth in Q4FY25, which it attributed to the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Events) or corporate business, among other levers.

What expenses did Ixigo incur?

Coming to the expenses, the brand and advertising expenses in the quarter rose by 73.2% YoY to Rs 29.08 crore. This included celebrity-led advertisements in the train segment and cricketer-led campaigns on the bus segments, among other activities. However, the management termed this a “multi-year exercise”, noting that their impacts will be visible later.

Finally, analysts also probed the decrease in technology-related costs despite the first quarter performing strong seasonally. Notably, such costs increased in the previous quarter owing to a surge in queries like flight and train tracker. Clarifying this assumption, officials noted that technology costs get bunched up and should be viewed as a YoY metric instead of a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) analysis.

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