We built an intelligent chat bot, powered by Priceline, called Halo. The AI interface is informative, personal, and relationship driven. Seamless integration of virtual payments and the scalability of the Google Assistant platform allows Halo to be easily by anyone in the US with a smartphone.
Travel
Halo. An AI chat bot for online booking, powered by Priceline.
The solution to customer acquisition for online travel.
The problem
Innovation in online travel has been stagnant for 15 years. As a result, the current online sites do not take advantage of innovative tools that can attract significantly more customers that want to purchase travel.
Online travel sites require app downloads making the shopping for travel cumbersome and slow.
No options for a seamless licensing model that can lead to growth.
Lack of data insights that create a truly personalized and frictionless user experience.
AI solution
A frictionless airfare & hotel booking experience. The average travel booking takes place in less than 8 minutes
Attractive licensing model for hotels and airlines that gives them immediate access to Google's pool of users, while also giving their customers a new and easy voice platform to use that can be accessed directly from the brand’s website.
Halo is an intelligent chat bot, combining AI with virtual payments to provide a personalized travel booking experience by building relationships with users. Halo takes advantage of brand and a viable business model with scalability, yielding significant customer acquisition through innovation.
The business problem explained.
The online travel industry has not changed as customers lean towards easier to use, frictionless interfaces that are more personalized and provide an overall user benefit in terms of choice and price.
Both airlines and hotels have optimal times to book in order for consumers to receive the best possible price. Making personalized recommendations based on travel habits is key to customer loyalty, yet there are very few places consumers can find these services.
As purchasing travel then becomes more complex, consumers need a simple interface that is not dependent on the type of device they use, or even the need to download an app.
Without a voice application, consumers remain stuck in the online travel industries lack of innovation. This results in a customer base that is forced into using clumsy purchasing interfaces that lack any type of personal service.
Every consumer is centralized on large networks like Google, Facebook, and WhatsApp, but they can’t actually purchase flights and/or hotels on any of those networks. They have to go elsewhere.
AI solution
Disrupt the travel industry with the introduction of a voice based, device agnostic, and personalized, learning interface AI intelligent chat bot powered by Priceline.
Our process.
First
Identify & Assess.
There was a need to uncover and thoroughly investigate the pain points in the consumer travel purchasing segment. We also needed to assess and determine if these problems could be addressed with technology – and if so, could AI make the difference.
Second
Propose a solution.
Once the problems were uncovered, it was determined that an extreme, personalized chat bot that could build relationships with consumers over time could serve as a possible solution.
Third
Verify the solution.
It is compulsory that the functioning solution be useful to the consumer by providing valuable industry pricing data that would further personalize the service.
For example, Halo, powered by Priceline, can now determine the best time to purchase airfare based on the data analysis of over 20 years of industry pricing history. Then, timely recommendations are made to customers so they can receive the best price & value.
Fourth
Find partners.
We needed to find the best partner to work with. Optimally, this partner would be an OTA, with large inventory, and a backend that would allow us to convert it to voice, making it fully compatible with DialogFlow.
Fifth
Create the business model.
We would need to devise a viable business model that worked. It was inherently clear that chat bots themselves were not business models. There was simply no way to drive income. In this unique case, we were able to combine the purchase of wholesale travel inventory with virtual payments in order to receive a margin at time of sale (e.g. the difference between wholesale and retail price).
On January 10th 2019, after 21 months of challenging development, we launched Halo powered by Priceline on the Google Assistant platform.
On January 10th 2019, after 21 months of challenging development, we launched Halo powered by Priceline on the Google Assistant platform.
A comprehensive & powerful chat bot with various AI learning combined with big data capabilities, Halo forms an intelligent system of engagement, providing value to consumers and addresses pain points in the consumer travel booking industry.
This intelligent chat bot solution is the very first to offer the ability to book and pay for both hotels and airfare. The solution combines intelligent AIs with virtual payments to provide a seamless, in app shopping and booking experience.
