Travel companies view machine learning as most important technology for future: Amadeus’ Sunil Kumar

Madrid-headquartered travel technology company Amadeus is an early adopter of major tech trends, said Sunil Kumar, Head of Engineering, Travel Search and Shopping, Amadeus, in an interview with TechCircle. Founded 36 years ago, Amadeus operates in 190 countries with a workforce of 18,000, serving airlines, travel agencies, travel content providers, airports, ground handlers, hotel chains, and car rental companies.

Despite a massive slowdown during the Covid-19 period, technology has enabled the company to adapt to the subsequent surge in tourism. Kumar discussed Amadeus' vision for the future of travel technology and its role in sustaining the dynamic nature of the sector.

Edited excerpts:

What operations does Amadeus’ India team undertake?

In India, we have two research and development centers in Bengaluru and Pune, with a strength of over 3,500. The Bengaluru centre has been operational for over a decade and the Pune was opened in 2023 to complement the latter’s capabilities. Both are primarily engineering centers and they contribute significantly to Amadeus' technical expertise, innovation, and commitment to enhancing travel experiences worldwide. Bengaluru center, in fact, is the second-largest engineering facility worldwide for Amadeus.

In terms of the work that the India team does, we contribute across airline IT systems, airline distribution systems, hospitality products, and the backend search platform that I lead. So we contribute across all the major pipelines that we have at Amadeus.

Amadeus supports airlines in digital and retail transformation through our comprehensive software and services. We serve the IT backbone, facilitating passenger engagement across all touchpoints, from corporate and online bookings to offline travel agencies. We are the primary passenger system provider, supporting over 400 airlines globally, including Lufthansa, British Airways, Southwest, Air India, and Vistara. Our products include the Global Distribution System (GDS) and Amadeus Nevio, a flexible, cloud-native retailing platform. Additionally, we offer products for dynamic pricing, ancillary services, and airport operations, contributing to various product segments, including airline IT, distribution systems, and hospitality.

How do you leverage artificial intelligence and data analytics to improve your offerings?

We have been early adopters of all major technology trends and it is no different for AI and analytics. The travel industry at large is adopting these technologies to offer personalised and frictionless customer experiences based on factors such as IP address, search history, and frequent flyer status, among others. 

We've been using analytics and AI solutions for several years now. We provide tools for data visualisation and self-service with business intelligence. Businesses can analyse bookings or traffic data from indirect channels to stay on top of the market trends and benchmark against the competitors. These insights help customers to facilitate their strategic tactical and operational decisions. We use AI modeling to offer management, dynamic pricing, advanced merchandising, and customer experience management, among others.  We recently launched APIs to empower startups, independent developers, and businesses to benefit from our platform. 

The travel industry, especially aviation, is also warming up to generative AI — Air India and IndiGo recently announced their Gen AI-based assistants. What is Amadeus’ work on this end?

We have formed several industry partnerships in this regard. For instance, we are working with Microsoft to develop a Gen AI-powered interactive travel assistant and expense platform. We are leveraging GPT models from Microsoft Azure OpenAI services to assist corporate travellers in planning their journeys and making bookings, among others. With Microsoft, we are working on a new plugin for Microsoft 365 Copilot that streamlines the travel in a contextually aware manner, while improving user experience. 

We are also collaborating with Accenture to boost ancillary revenue for airlines. By combining our technology and industry experience with Accenture's data analytics and machine learning models, we intend to help customers develop actionable data-driven insights to optimise their ancillary offering. 

What are the new travel trends that are prompting technological innovation?

We commissioned a report on travel and travel technology trends in March. The major highlight was that airlines expect to see an 18% increase in revenue from switching to modern retailing. Additionally we found that the hospitality sector anticipates personalisation to help them to deliver more.

On the technology side, travel companies view machine learning as the most important technology for the future. The use of automation and AI to curate recommendations and offering tailored to individual preferences is expected to rise — leading to hypepersonalised experiences. Similarly, the increased trend towards the adoption of biometrics in broadening security, aligned with the global preferences for contactless travelers is seen. Notably, Amadeus completed the acquisition of Vision-Box, a leading provider of biometric solutions for airports, and airlines to help us service such requirements.