𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: Sachin Menon, vice president of engineering — data, marketing, and FinTech technology at Priceline, shares how the online travel agency is innovating with cloud technology to help travelers plan their next trip with ease and efficiency. With its data already on Google Cloud, Priceline upgraded its AI-powered 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘱 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 suite with new generative AI features that help millions of travelers get to their happy places at happy prices faster.

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲: Priceline wanted to quickly capitalize on emerging gen AI capabilities to significantly reduce the hours of time customers spend researching and planning trips while helping them to secure the best travel deals. According to Priceline’s latest proprietary travel study, conducted by The Harris Poll and published in Feb ’24, 22% of U.S. adults find that creating their trip itinerary is one of the most frustrating parts of planning and booking a trip. The study also found that It takes the equivalent of two full work days, or 16 hours, to plan and book a trip.

𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Google Cloud forms the backbone of Priceline’s data foundation, with BigQuery and BigLake powering its unified data platform, AI recommendations engine, and other advanced analytics. In the fast-paced travel industry, Priceline needed to move as quickly as possible, so the team decided to look within Google Cloud to accelerate its gen AI journey. Using Vertex AI, Priceline was able to access, customize, and leverage the latest gen AI models and integrate them seamlessly with its proprietary data and existing applications, bringing its initial gen AI pilots to life in less than six months.

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀: Now, Priceline’s 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘱 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 suite can deliver real-time recommendations, competitive pricing deals, and more personalized planning and booking experiences — including an innovative gen AI-powered travel agent.

𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗲𝗻𝗼𝗻, 𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 — 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮, 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲:

→ “Our data platform and AI recommendation suite has been built on Google Cloud infrastructure and Vertex AI. With the emergence of gen AI, we now also have our content enrichment and real-time recommendation engine using the gen AI and AI services that Google offers.”

→ “In a competitive industry like travel, speed to market is very key. We leaned on Google Cloud to bring in the modernized data platform and the AI infrastructure. It was very easy for us to power a prototype because we had our data platform already sitting in BigQuery. It was easy to integrate with Vertex AI to deploy and manage models. It’s been a pretty fabulous journey.”

→ “With the introduction of BigLake, we are able to query seamlessly and join [unstructured data] with images, videos, and audio data sets and provide an integrated analytics layer, which will provide us insights into how we want to personalize the recommendations for our customers and give them a more enthralling experience.”

𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱: Vertex AI, BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Bigtable, BigLake

𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲:

→ Priceline Charts Businesswide Generative AI Deployments with Google Cloud: https://goo.gle/4dh4Dyk

→ Priceline: Helping travelers curate unique experiences by improving IT data management: https://goo.gle/4dmQpMt

→ New Priceline Research Finds Average Traveler Spends Two Full Work Days To Plan and Book Trips: https://goo.gle/4eh8P2h

→ Visit Priceline’s website: https://goo.gle/4gJIOdR