Sabre Corporation, the leading software and technology company that powers the global travel industry, Monday announced that Sabre and Google are developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven technology platform that is an industry first in travel. The technology, known as Sabre Travel AI, is infused with Google's state-of-the-art AI technology and advanced machine-learning capabilities that will help customers to deliver highly relevant and personalized content more quickly, deliver personalized content that better meets the demands of today's traveler, and create expanded revenue and margin growth opportunities. The company is integrating Sabre Travel AI into certain products in its existing portfolio, with plans to bring those to market in early 2021. "Sabre Travel AI is a game-changer. We are proud to be working with Google to build technologies that will seek to re-define the way travel companies do business, and turn the insights derived from analyses into repeatable, scalable operations. The development of Sabre Travel AI marks a milestone in our technology transformation and a significant step toward achieving our 2025 vision of personalized retailing," said Sundar Narasimhan, president of Sabre Labs. "With the creation of Sabre Travel AI, we are rebuilding our platform on cloud-native, data-driven technology that can be integrated into the existing and future products that Sabre offers. "We are combining Google Cloud's infrastructure, AI and machine-learning capabilities with Sabre's deep travel domain knowledge to create, not next, but third-generation solutions that we believe are smarter, faster and more cost-effective – a first-of-its kind in travel." Travel AI: Industry-first innovation using data insights and state-of-the art intelligence Sabre Travel AI will deliver next-generation technology advancements that enrich products across the Sabre retail, distribution and fulfillment portfolio. Specifically, Sabre Travel AI capitalizes on Google Cloud AI solutions and automated machine learning tools that sense, analyze and predict consumer behaviors – using real-time shopping information and sophisticated travel-specific business insights. This game-changing innovation is designed to enable airlines, agencies, corporations, hoteliers and other travel partners to take their retailing and digital customer experience strategies to the next level. By delivering the right offer, at the right time across all relevant channels, they will be positioned to deliver tailored personalization to travelers that should drive higher conversion rates and build traveler loyalty. Beyond retailing, customers will be able to power distribution strategies across all channels with the same unified approach and even deploy these Travel AI powered solutions in airports or mobile apps to better serve the traveler. In the future, we expect that Sabre customers will be able to seamlessly integrate their own proprietary solutions with Sabre's new Travel AI to create true differentiation in the marketplace. Sabre Travel AI will provide access to cloud-based, advanced technology tools to help prepare and store data sets, augment them with customer proprietary or other third party databases, rapidly test and learn with experimentation frameworks, develop and deploy proprietary machine learning models, understand model performance and quickly optimize and deploy new solutions in a scalable environment. Sabre Travel AI will help to accelerate the company's digital transformation by developing critical products and solutions focused on its customer's current and future needs. The company also stated that its strategic partners, like Google, will not have the right to access or use any of the company's or its customer's data. How that data resides in Google Cloud is managed by the company. Forging the Future of Travel: Partnering with Google Cloud to Accelerate Innovation. Creating an Innovation Framework to create the future of travel, Sabre and Google Cloud joined forces in January 2020 to imagine, develop and deploy capabilities that will advance the travel ecosystem. Sabre's Travel AI is an output of that framework, and over time, the Company plans to integrate its intelligent and scalable technology across the breadth of the Sabre omni-channel retail, distribution and fulfillment offering. "Since the inception of our strategic relationship with Sabre, one of our goals has been to bring together the talent and technology of both our companies to create the future of travel," said Rob Enslin, president of Google Cloud. "Sabre Travel AI perfectly represents Google Cloud's strategic vision to partner deeply with thought leaders in industry verticals to utilize Google Cloud's innovative technologies to transform and create industry firsts. Today's announcement is what we hope will be the first of many concepts generated from our partnership." Sabre is building upon foundational, proven products like dynamic availability and dynamic pricing for ancillaries, already using ML models. Through its partnership with Google, Sabre plans to continue to innovate using the new power source of Sabre Travel AI and launch more new retailing capabilities in the market beginning early 2021. — SG
