Delta Air Lines has been working with AI pricing company Fetcherr for months, but the partnership made headlines recently with consumers (and members of the U.S. Senate) questioning the ethics of personalized pricing.
In a late-July letter addressed to Delta CEO Ed Bastian, Senators Ruben Gallego (Arizona), Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut) and Mark Warner (Virginia) voiced concern about “prices that are tailored to an individual consumer’s willingness to pay,” and that fact that “surveillance pricing” often uses private personal information, from web browsing behavior to social media activity. Delta denies that personal data is used in its Fetcherr-assisted fares.
Our Analysis: Advisors Will Want to Keep Tabs on Pricing Practices, Educate Clients About Them and Possibly Advocate for Fairness and Transparency.
AI-driven pricing is already changing the way air fares are displayed and sold; as of last month, Delta says it used AI to determine 3% of fares, and that it intends to grow that number to 20% by the end of this year.
Travel advisors who book air on behalf of clients will want to stay up to date on dynamic pricing processes and keep their clients well informed on how the market is changing. And, if questions around fairness and privacy linger, the travel trade, including the American Society of Travel Advisors, may need to come together to advocate for transparency and pricing practices that better protect consumers and the agents who serve them.
What They Are Saying: AI-Pricing May Lower Incentive to Provide Good Service
“Pricing based on AI algorithms will no doubt increase revenues for Delta,” wrote U.S. senators Gallego, Blumenthal and Warner. “At Delta’s investor event last November, one investor celebrated the ability to set prices that matched every passenger’s ‘personal demand curve.’ However, with respect to the interests of Delta’s passengers, there is a danger that this approach will result in higher fares and diminish incentives to improve service.”
New research shows a sharp increase in Australians utilising artificial intelligence (AI) to plan and book their holidays, with use particularly high among Boomers.
The findings, published in Adyen’s 2025 Hospitality and Travel Report, indicate that 28% of Australians now use AI to book holidays – an increase of 73% from the previous year. Notably, Boomer adoption of AI for travel planning has more than doubled, with usage up 106% year-on-year.
AI on the rise
The report suggests that AI is being embraced across multiple generations. Gen Z (49%) and Millennials (41%) remain the most active users for travel-related AI, while Boomers are catching up rapidly. Among Australians who use AI when booking travel, 71% said it delivers faster inspiration than any other method, and 60% of Boomers found it particularly helpful in navigating ad-heavy social media environments.
AI tools are now influencing each stage of the travel process, from suggesting destinations and planning itineraries to identifying last-minute deals. As consumer habits shift, hospitality and travel businesses must adapt to increasing expectations for speed, personalisation, and security in digital experiences.
Industry response
The hospitality sector is preparing for the impact of these changes. According to the report, 47% of hospitality businesses expect AI-powered search tools to reshape the industry in 2025 and beyond. The same percentage believe automation that personalises guest experiences will play a transformative role.
Hayley Fisher, Adyen’s Country Manager for Australia & New Zealand, commented on the trend, noting the expanding role of AI in the customer journey:
Across Australia, we’re seeing more hospitality businesses embedding AI across their digital platforms to personalise search, surface relevant experiences, and inspire faster bookings. But the real power of AI is unlocked when it enhances the checkout too – by tailoring payment options based on customer preferences, speeding up authentication, and spotting fraud before it impacts the guest. That’s what turns AI from a novelty into a competitive advantage.
This growing use of AI technology not only changes how trips are discovered and booked but also affects payment processes, from dynamic pricing and personalised offers to real-time fraud detection.
Security concerns
The increase in digital transactions has led to a marked rise in payment fraud attempts. The report states that 39% of accommodation providers globally have observed a significant increase in fraudulent activity over the past year.
Fisher emphasised the importance of balancing convenience with security:
With AI now central to travel planning, security can’t be an afterthought. Guests expect every interaction from discovery to payment to be effortless, but also secure. At Adyen, we help hospitality businesses strike that balance, using AI not just to personalise experiences but to prevent fraud in real time and protect what matters most – customer trust.
According to the report’s findings, 63% of merchants believe fragmented online and on-site payment systems are restricting their ability to deliver a connected guest experience, a challenge that grows as customer expectations for frictionless journeys increase.
Changing booking habits
Australians’ holiday-planning behaviour reflects a broader embrace of digital tools. AI’s ability to filter through vast amounts of content and adapt to user needs appears to be a key driver of its uptake among all age groups. For Boomers in particular, AI offers help in navigating a digital landscape often saturated with advertising and irrelevant options.
The shift towards AI-powered planning has led hospitality operators to focus increasingly on streamlining their digital operations, personalising interactions, and strengthening fraud protection.
The report is based on consumer and merchant research conducted by Censuswide across a range of international markets, with specific emphasis on Australian trends reflecting changing habits, expectations, and industry responses.
Not only does Airbnb want to be the “everything app” — where users can book literally everything, from accommodations to experiences and services — it also wants to do the booking for you.
Brian Chesky, cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, laid out his vision for the travel app’s AI-powered future during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. Airbnb beat revenue expectations for quarter two and announced a $6 billion stock buyback, but said it expected slower growth in Q3. The stock was down more than 6% after-hours.
“Over the next couple of years, I think what you’re going to see is Airbnb becoming an AI-first application,” Chesky said on the call with analysts.
He added that currently “almost none” of the top 50 apps in the App Store are AI apps, with the notable exception of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But he predicted that soon every one of them will be AI apps, either AI startups or pre-generative AI apps that successfully transform into “native AI” apps. That’s the transformation that he says is underway at Airbnb.
Chesky said Airbnb’s approach to utilizing AI has differed from some other travel companies in that they have not focused on using AI to offer travel planning and inspiration. Instead, the company has rolled out AI in customer service, with a custom agent built on 13 different models and trained on tens of thousands of conversations.
As a result of the AI customer service chatbot, he said Airbnb has reduced the number of hosts and guests who need to contact a human agent by 15%.
Chesky said the AI agent is going to become more personalized throughout the next year and that it will be able to take more actions on behalf of the user.
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“It will not only tell you how to cancel your reservation, it will know which reservation you want to cancel. It can cancel it for you and it can be agentic as in it can start to search and help you plan and book your next trip,” he added.
Airbnb declined to provide additional comment when reached by Business Insider.
In February, Chesky said on Airbnb’s quarter four earnings call that he thought it was still too early to use AI for trip planning, but that he believed AI would eventually have a “profound impact on travel.”
Chesky also said in February that he wants to make Airbnb the Amazon of travel, or a one-stop shop for “all of your traveling and living needs.”
Airbnb in May announced it was relaunching its Experiences business and launching Services, which allows users to book on-site professionals like photographers or massage therapists.
On the call Wednesday, Chesky said he was “very bullish” on Experiences and that the feedback so far has been positive.
Axel Springer, Insider Inc.’s parent company, is an investor in Airbnb.
In rural India, where access to healthcare remains limited, millions of individuals struggle to receive specialist medical attention. The distance to the nearest city hospital, coupled with the cost and time involved in making the journey, often makes seeking care an impossible task. But now, a new solution is emerging: artificial intelligence. Through AI, the dream of bringing specialist healthcare to villages is becoming a reality. Not through physical presence, but via powerful algorithms that can provide life-saving diagnoses on a mobile device.
The Divide: A Growing Healthcare Crisis in Rural India
The healthcare landscape in India is a tale of two extremes. Urban centers are home to cutting-edge hospitals, some of which offer world-class medical treatments and attract medical tourists from all over the world. Yet, for the vast majority of India’s population—those living in rural areas—the situation is drastically different. Nearly 70% of India’s population resides in rural regions, but these areas are served by less than 30% of the country’s doctors. This disparity leaves millions without access to necessary care, contributing to a public health crisis of significant proportions.
Chronic conditions that could be easily managed if diagnosed early often go unnoticed until they reach critical stages. Treatable diseases lead to permanent disabilities, and the financial strain of traveling to city hospitals results in families sacrificing their savings. This healthcare gap has existed for decades and seems insurmountable. However, recent technological advancements are providing a glimmer of hope, as AI is being integrated into rural healthcare to help bridge this divide.
Empowering Local Health Workers Through Technology
The key to addressing this issue does not lie in building more hospitals or replacing doctors. Instead, the solution is about empowerment. The current revolution in rural healthcare technology is built on a “force multiplier” model, which seeks to enhance the capacity of the existing network of community health workers. These trusted individuals, already embedded in rural communities, are being equipped with mobile devices and AI diagnostic tools, effectively turning them into the first line of healthcare in their villages.
By leveraging simple and affordable smartphones, these health workers can now access a powerful AI engine that resides in the cloud, providing them with accurate diagnostic insights. The user experience for these AI tools is designed to be simple and intuitive, ensuring that local health workers, even those with limited literacy or technical knowledge, can easily navigate the system. These systems have been developed with a focus on reliability, as their purpose is not just to entertain or inform, but to deliver critical, life-saving diagnostic information directly at the point of care.
Transforming Basic Phones Into Advanced Diagnostic Tools
The true potential of AI in rural healthcare lies in its ability to turn a basic mobile phone into a multi-functional diagnostic tool. For instance, with a low-cost lens attachment, the phone’s camera becomes a retinal scanner, capable of detecting signs of diabetic retinopathy—one of the leading causes of blindness. Health workers can simply capture a photo of a patient’s eye, and the AI, trained on millions of retinal images, can accurately identify signs of the disease. This ability to detect early signs of diabetic retinopathy allows health workers to flag patients who need further evaluation, potentially saving their vision and preventing long-term disability.
Similarly, the phone’s microphone can be transformed into a digital stethoscope, enabling health workers to listen for the subtle sounds of respiratory conditions such as pneumonia or tuberculosis. AI-driven algorithms analyze the sounds of breathing or coughing, identifying acoustic signatures that indicate disease. These tools do not provide a final diagnosis, but they serve as effective screening mechanisms, alerting health workers to high-risk individuals who need follow-up care or testing.
A Financial Lifeline: Reducing the Economic Burden
The financial impact of early and accessible diagnosis is profound, particularly for low-income rural families. A single trip to a city hospital for a specialist consultation can be financially devastating. It involves travel costs, loss of wages for both the patient and a family member, and the high fees for the consultation itself. For many families, this one trip can wipe out their savings. By bringing the diagnostic process to the village, these AI tools help to prevent such a crisis.
By providing access to early-stage diagnostics, the AI tools help to identify who truly needs to make the long and expensive journey to a city hospital and who can be treated locally. For chronic conditions like diabetes, early detection of complications can help avoid much more expensive treatments and hospitalizations down the line. Furthermore, by improving the health of rural populations, these AI tools help create a healthier workforce. The economic benefits of this are clear—improved health leads to higher productivity and reduces the economic strain caused by preventable disabilities.
Addressing the Challenges of Implementation
While the promise of AI-powered healthcare in rural India is clear, several challenges remain in its implementation. One of the foremost barriers is trust. Villagers are accustomed to seeing human doctors, and the concept of a phone making a medical diagnosis can seem foreign and, at times, suspicious. This is where the role of the local health worker becomes crucial. These health workers are not only the ones delivering care but also serve as the trusted intermediaries between the technology and the community. Their role is to guide patients through the process, explain the benefits, and build confidence in the new system.
Another challenge is training. The AI tools must be simple, user-friendly, and intuitive, but local health workers still need to be properly trained to use them effectively. Training ensures that health workers understand the capabilities and limitations of the tools, enabling them to apply them correctly and make informed decisions based on the diagnostic results. This training is essential to ensure that the technology is used appropriately and does not lead to misunderstandings or misuse.
The third challenge is connectivity. Many rural villages in India are located in remote areas where internet access is sparse or non-existent. To address this issue, the AI tools have been designed to function offline. The apps store data and perform necessary computations directly on the device itself, and only when an internet connection is available does the data sync to the cloud for further analysis. This approach ensures that health workers can continue their diagnostic work even in areas with unreliable connectivity, making the technology accessible even in the most isolated parts of the country.
Moving Toward a More Equitable Future
Artificial intelligence may not be a cure-all for India’s rural healthcare crisis, but it has become an essential tool in the effort to bridge the healthcare divide. The AI Vaidya initiative is a groundbreaking model that enables local health workers to access diagnostic tools once reserved for highly trained specialists. By providing access to early-stage diagnostics, these tools are helping to reduce avoidable morbidity and alleviate the financial burden of healthcare for rural families.
This shift is not just about the application of smart algorithms—it is about a paradigm shift in how healthcare is delivered. It represents a vision for the future where healthcare is no longer restricted by geography or access to specialist services. Instead, it becomes a right available to all, regardless of where individuals live. With the introduction of simple, accessible, and powerful technology, healthcare in rural India is taking a monumental step toward becoming more equitable and inclusive.
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