British software company Lokulus has told travel agents to embrace AI and use ChatGPT to supplement staff shortages.
Despite the documented shortfalls in AI’s capacity to generate accurate travel-related information, Mark Chamberlain, Director of Lokulus, urged travel agents to use tools such as ChatGPT but to “keep the human in the loop”.
Addressing the travel agent community at the Advantage Travel Partnership annual conference in Cancun, Mexico, Chamberlain said AI could be used as a ‘co-pilot’ to assist, guide and prompt.
“The demographic of the industry is changing; the sector lost a lot of people during the pandemic, so now there are far fewer knowledgeable individuals than there were,” he said.
He added that AI could, however, supplement the knowledge that had been lost after experienced travel agents had left the profession. He highlighted that this could be particularly useful for agents who worked from home, as they could not easily ask colleagues for help and advice.
But the tech did not offer enough personalisation and contained inaccuracies, so the content it produced needed to be checked by a human before use, said Chamberlain.
