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Booking Holdings spends nearly $9 billion a year to reach travelers. Its CFO explains how AI is changing trip planning. 1 hour ago 38 Good morning. The biggest impact of AI on travel may happen before the traveler ever checks into a hotel or boards a plane. At the Fortune AIQ Summit on Oct. 1, I interviewed Ewout Steenbergen, EVP and CFO of Booking Holdings (No. 169 on the Fortune 500), which owns and operates several major online travel brands, including Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, KAYAK, OpenTable, and Rentalcars.com. Steenbergen described a future in which AI makes travel planning more seamless, personalized, and proactive. That could mean suggesting an indoor visit to the Louvre when rain threatens a Paris itinerary, automatically moving a restaurant reservation after a delayed flight, or recommending an activity based on a traveler's preferences and open time. The prize is not simply a better chatbot. It is what Booking calls a "connected trip": an integrated experience that ties together flights, hotels, restaurants, rental cars, and activities. And, in doing so, potentially creates more loyalty, trust, and frequency of engagement. From AI pilots to unit economics. For finance leaders, Steenbergen's comments offered a practical framework for judging AI investments. His message: Move past isolated pilots, but keep a close eye on unit economics. Booking spends roughly $8 billion to $9 billion annually on paid customer-acquisition channels, including search, social, and metasearch platforms, Steenbergen said. About one-third of its consumer traffic comes through paid channels, while the other two-thirds comes directly to its platforms. As consumers turn to more AI tools and agents for discovery, he sees greater channel diversification as potentially positive for Booking's unit economics. Early signals are encouraging. Customers using Booking's AI tools are booking somewhat faster, converting at somewhat higher rates, and canceling less often, Steenbergen said, while cautioning that the data remains early stage. I asked him how he's measuring the financial return on investment when it comes to AI. "I think in this area there isn't a perfect answer," he said. He continued, "I even think that the hyperscalers that spend hundreds of billions on the development of their large language models, they don't really know what is going to be the ROI," Steenbergen said. "They have maybe some assumptions and some hypotheses, but the whole point is, you don't want to fall behind." He argued that the biggest returns come not from layering AI onto existing processes, but from rebuilding processes end to end. In customer service, Booking has seen booking units grow at a high single-digit rate while total customer-service costs declined slightly, he said. Customer satisfaction increased at the same time, driving down average servicing cost per booking. In engineering, the company's roughly 9,000 technologists have used AI tools to increase the number of merge requests put into production by about 30%, Steenbergen said. Crucially, that figure reflects code that has been tested and cleared quality controls - not merely generated. The CFO's job, then, is to measure both sides of the ledger. Steenbergen said Booking monitors token and licensing costs and uses "effective model-cost routing," reserving lower-cost or open-source models for simpler tasks and more expensive models for complex ones. One engineering metric combines human and AI costs: total IT cost per merge request. That is the more mature AI-finance question. Not whether a model costs more in isolation, but whether it lowers the all-in cost of producing a valuable outcome. Steenbergen is applying the technology personally, too. He has an "AI coach" and uses two AI agents: a "strategic thought partner" for board materials and strategic analysis, and a "critical equity research agent" to pressure-test earnings-call preparation. Watch the full video of my interview with Steenbergen at the Fortune AIQ Summit here. Leaderboard. Fortune 500 Power Moves Cody Perdue was named interim CFO at Albertsons Companies (No. 57). Perdue succeeds Sharon McCollam, who previously announced plans to retire as president and CFO and will remain with the company in an advisory capacity through the end of the fiscal year on Feb. 27, 2027, to support the transition. Albertsons has begun a search for a permanent CFO. Perdue, who joined Albertsons in 2013, currently serves as SVP of treasury, investor relations, and risk management and will continue to oversee those functions in his interim role. He has also held positions including group VP of treasury and investor relations, as well as finance and accounting leadership roles. Before joining Albertsons, Perdue worked at Deloitte & Touche LLP. The weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts - see the most recent edition. More notable moves Raju Datla was appointed CFO of MobileX, a wireless company. Datla joins from RedCloud Holdings, where he served as CFO. His prior roles include chief strategy officer at Tillman Fiber and CFO and co-founder of NxtGen Datacenter & Cloud Technologies. Earlier, he worked in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, advising technology, media, and telecommunications clients. Angela Sweeney was appointed CFO of Zircon Corporation, a Silicon Valley-based maker of sensor-based electronic hand tools. Sweeney joins Zircon with more than 20 years of finance and operations experience across high-growth manufacturing and technology companies. Her background includes senior finance and operating roles at Poplar Homes, Astra, Engagor, and Venga Global, as well as advisory work with founders and executive teams. Big deal. Cybersecurity is becoming a more consequential capital-allocation issue for CFOs as companies expand their use of AI. PwC's 2027 Global Digital Trust Insights survey of 3,934 business and technology executives found that 84% of security and finance leaders expect cyber budgets to increase, up six percentage points from last year, with AI a top investment priority. Yet half of security leaders say attacks targeting AI systems are among the threats their organizations are least prepared to address - ranking ahead of cloud-related threats, third-party breaches, and ransomware. The report also points to foundational resilience gaps: Companies, on average, have implemented only three of seven surveyed data-risk measures, and just 39% have fully formalized operational-continuity plans that specifically address cyber threats. For finance leaders, realizing AI's value will require funding the data protections, controls, talent, and continuity planning needed to contain financial and operational risk. Going deeper. CFOs pursuing AI-led growth may face a tightening market for the talent needed to deliver it. CompTIA's September analysis found that U.S. employers posted 272,040 new technology job openings, bringing active postings to 625,633 - the highest level in more than three years and 22.4% above September 2025. Demand for AI capabilities is especially pronounced: active job postings seeking AI skills rose by 32,327 from August to 349,821, up roughly 282% since May 2024. The figures suggest finance leaders will need to weigh the cost of recruiting specialized talent against reskilling existing teams, outsourcing work, and redesigning processes around AI. Overheard. "There is nothing more valuable in hiring than a personal recommendation or a referral. It should be a reminder that growing and maintaining your professional network is a key part of your career. You need to be a person others would vouch for." - Paddy Lambros, founder and CEO of AI recruiter Dex, writes in a Fortune opinion piece. * Homepage * Fortune Magazine * Booking Holdings spends nearly $9 billion a year to reach travelers. Its CFO explains how AI is changing trip planning.

Booking.com just launched Lola, an AI Agent that can plan and book your entire trip. Sep 29, 2026 Booking.com has launched Lola, a dedicated AI travel agent that can search real-time availability, compare prices, and book hotels, restaurants, events, and entire trips in a single conversation across Booking Holdings brands like Kayak, Priceline, and OpenTable plus partners like SeatGeek and GetYourGuide, as travel companies push back against general-purpose agents like Meta's Muse that threatened to bypass them. The new "it" thing to do is create an AI Agent for your brand, and Booking.com is the latest to do just that. Today, Booking.com announced its new AI Agent, Lola, which will make it easier for you to book your travel. The company says that it can offer "personalized recommendations, live availability and pricing, direct booking, preferred rates and benefits." Lola can also recommend and reserve hotels, restaurants, events, activities, or entire trips. Launch partners include ResX, BLADE, Aero, SeatGeek, GetYourGuide, Nuitee, and Ten Group, as well as Booking's own brands. This includes Booking.com, OpenTable, Kayak, Priceline, Agoda, and FareHarbor. The app can search for real-time availability and pricing, letting users compare options and book within the same conversation. Lola can understand natural language, ask follow-up questions, and learn about users to make recommendations more personalized. Lola is one of the first dedicated AI agents for booking travel. It looks like Booking.com's Lola is one of the first dedicated AI Agents for bookings and travel. While Muse was the first to arrive with similar capabilities, it is part of Meta and can do much more than just bookings and travel. However, when Meta's Muse first launched, it caused travel-booking stocks to fall amid fears that the AI Agent could bypass dedicated travel sites altogether. But it looks like the dedicated travel sites are fighting back. As always with AI, it's important to double-check things and still make the final booking yourself, as AI can hallucinate. Most AI agents will put together an itinerary for you and then give it to you for final approval before booking. Agents like Muse also take it a step further by asking for your info, so you can just enter your credit card and book it yourself. Making things so much easier. This is where AI Agents will really show their worth.

KAYAK co-founders launch AI assistant Lola for travel experiences. * Sixuan Wu * September 29, 2026 [Credit: Lola] Reading Time: 2 minutes US: KAYAK co-founders Steve Hafner and Paul English have launched Lola, an AI assistant for travel, dining and experiences backed by Booking Holdings. Lola provides personalised recommendations for trips, restaurants and events with real-time availability and pricing, allowing users to compare options and book directly through the same conversation. Anyone can become a member of Lola for free, with paid membership plans providing preferred hotel rates, priority dining, concierge access, and more. Pricing includes The Plus membership at $5 per month and the VIP at $25 per month. Lola's offerings include: * Hotels - all membership plans include results from multiple travel sites, with paid plans offering preferred discounted rates * Dining - paid plans provide advance access to restaurant reservations * Events - members receive access and preferred pricing on more than 200,000 experiences worldwide, including sporting events, concerts, museums and attractions * Paid members also receive discounts for airport and concierge services Launch partners include ResX, BLADE, Aero, SeatGeek, GetYourGuide, Nuitee and Ten Group, alongside Booking Holdings brands including Booking.com, OpenTable, KAYAK, Priceline, Agoda, and FareHarbor. "We built Lola to give everyone the advantage of being well connected," Hafner said. "The next generation of AI assistants should do more than answer questions. They should understand what you're looking for, help you decide, and make it happen." English added: "Lola learns what each member likes and searches across hotels, restaurants, events, and experiences to find the options worth their time, with member rates and perks attached. We're building Lola to be comprehensive, and there are many more partners to come." Highlights: * KAYAK co-founders Steve Hafner and Paul English have launched Lola, an AI assistant for travel, dining and experiences, backed by Booking Holdings. * Lola provides personalised recommendations with real-time availability and pricing, allowing users to compare options and book hotels, restaurants and experiences directly within the same conversation. * Lola offers free and paid memberships, with Plus costing $5 per month and VIP costing $25 per month. Paid members receive benefits including preferred hotel rates, priority restaurant reservations and concierge access. * The platform covers more than 200,000 experiences worldwide, including sporting events, concerts, museums and attractions, with members receiving access and preferred pricing. * Lola has partnered with companies including Booking.com, OpenTable, KAYAK, Priceline, Agoda, SeatGeek, GetYourGuide and Ten Group, and is headquartered in New York City.