MakeMyTrip CTO: AI compresses travel booking into single prompts

MakeMyTrip’s CTO told Inc42 that generative AI is compressing the traditional travel-booking journey. Travelers are now bundling questions about flights, transit visas, and card offers into single prompts, a behavior that suggests AI may be evolving from a conversational interface to an agent capable of handling complex, multi-step tasks.

This development could imply more than just convenience. It may indicate that users are beginning to treat AI as a decision-making layer, not just a search tool. The observation from MakeMyTrip’s CTO appears consistent with discussions at India’s CTO Summit 2026, where some tech leaders seemed to be framing AI as a potential core infrastructure for workflows rather than an add-on.

If AI continues to collapse multiple steps into a single interaction, it could disrupt the traditional booking model. Platforms might need to reconsider their role—whether they remain curators of options or become facilitators of transactions. This shift could also prompt questions about how such interactions might be monetized, though the specifics remain unclear.

The trend also touches on broader concerns about AI deployments outpacing governance tools, particularly in areas where digital actions have real-world consequences. Errors in handling queries like visas or payments could introduce new risks, though the extent of these challenges is still emerging.

Similar patterns have been observed in other industries, where AI is increasingly moving beyond assistance to handling entire workflows. For travel companies like MakeMyTrip, the question may be whether their platforms can adapt to this mode of interaction or if they risk becoming data providers for more advanced AI agents.

For now, the CTO’s comments suggest this shift is being viewed as a potential opportunity. However, the long-term implications—both for the company and the industry—remain to be seen.

Sources: inc42.com