Skift Take

Generative AI is still young, but some travel companies are encouraging workers to experiment as they determine how the tech will be used in the future.

Sabre wanted to know how generative AI could improve the customer-service experience for hotel operators, so the company made that topic a category for an internal innovation competition last August.

One of those teams developed an idea for a customer-service chatbot, and the pitch to Sabre executives went smoothly. There was a prototype by October. 

And last month, that competition idea became Sabre’s first generative AI product. 

“That's nine months from idea to deliverable product. That only really happened because we're giving the team flexibility, the opportunity to experiment with these new tools and these new ideas and bring them forward,” said Scott Wilson, president of Sabre Hospitality, in an inte