Google pushes AI into flight deals as antitrust scrutiny, competition heat up

Google on Thursday announced A new AI-seeking tool to help travelers find flight agreements-even while supervisors continue to wonder whether the dominance of the search giant in Reisdiscovery is suffocating the competition.

Called Flight offersThe new tool is available within Google flights and is designed to help “flexible travelers” find cheaper rates. Users can type natural language questions in a search bar – describe how and when they want to travel – and the AI surfaces matching options.

These questions can be as “week-long journey this winter to a city with good food, only non-stop” or “10-day ski trip to a world-class resort with fresh powder,” Google said in a blog post.

Google confirmed to WAN that Flight Deals uses a modified version of Gemini 2.5. The price information comes from real -time data trees with airlines and other travel companies. The prices shown in flight agreements correspond to those in existing Google flight preferences, but it uses AI to pars natural language questions and surface -matching destinations, the company said.

The tool ranks the results based on the percentage of savings, whereby the highest savings first appeared, the company stated. If the savings percentages are the same, the lower absolute price is first displayed. Deals without a savings badge are ranked by the lowest price, the company said.

Because escape prices often change, Google told WAN that the ranking and availability of deals on the tool can vary.

Regulators, including the European Commission, are currently investigating how Google can prefer its own search products – including Google – flights – in ways that harm competition. EU supervisors are looking at Google for enforcement under the Digital Markets Act, with the aim of keeping the power of large technical platforms in check. In response, the unit of alphabet possession is Reportedly plan to propose changes Sussen registrants, including the addition of a price comparison box in search results.

Initially, Google held flight offers in Beta, with plans to roll it out in the US, Canada and India in the coming week. The company said that the purpose of the beta release is “to collect feedback and to investigate how AI can improve travel planning.”

Google confirmed to WAN that uses user questions such as search history, and users have the option to manage or delete their history made via the tool by visiting MyActivity.

The newest move is part of a broader experiment, because Google wants to compete with OpenAI, anthropic, perplexity and other large AI players by integrating generative AI into trips.

Competitors like it Booking.comExpedia and Indian Travel Aggregator Makemy trip Have already rolled out their own AI integrations to streamline the journey of the journey. In that sense, Google arrives a little late. But with its scale and reach, the company can still be a serious challenge – if the tool turns out to be effective and gets a grip.

Nevertheless, the classic Google flights interface will continue to exist. The original Flight Search Tool, launched in 2011, even gets an update with an option to exclude basic differing rates for travel within the US and Canada.

This story has been updated with the answers from Google to some of our questions.

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