How AI Transformed Travel and Leisure Tech in 2025

How Travel and Leisure Tech Evolved in 2025

TechBuzz Feature

2025 was the year travel finally caught up with what tech had been promising for a decade. As we featured last week, Travel got its own seat at the Davos table in Switzerland this year for the first time with the Global Travel Forum Davos 2025 focusing on how tech and geopolitics are set to change travel in 2026. Our coverage points to some of the evolutions in process already and what we believe will have been central to the Davos agenda.

AI co-pilots that plan and rebook on the fly. Creators selling their own trips. Holidays where the software fades into the background and the experience takes over.

Beyond Tech followed that evolution in real time. Over the course of the year, we covered agentic travel planners, calm AI interfaces, immersive AI tourism, creator-run travel products, and the early shape of a secondary “StubHub of travel” marketplace. Looked at together, these stories show a sector that is no longer experimenting at the edges. Travel tech is settling into place.

Calm Tech and the Backgrounding of AI

Some of the most important Beyond Tech specials this year focused on a simple idea. AI works best when it gets out of the way.

The recent Black Friday special Using AI For Holiday Travel & Shopping explored how tools from OpenAI, Amazon, and Google are becoming background helpers. They flag cheaper routes, monitor delays, handle rebooking, and surface options without forcing travelers to manage yet another app. The emphasis was on reliability during peak holiday chaos.

This theme became clearer as the year went on. OpenAI’s plans around its Jony Ive–designed device and refreshed ChatGPT interface pointed toward AI as ambient infrastructure. Instead of constant notifications, the assistant handles tasks quietly and only surfaces short responses when needed.

That shift captured a broader 2025 pattern. Technology receded. Travel itself moved back to the foreground.

Google, Search, and the Collapse of the Travel Funnel

Several Beyond Tech deep-dives examined how Google is reshaping travel planning by wiring agentic AI into search.

One feature walked through Google’s AI Mode and Canvas-style experiences, showing how inspiration, planning, comparison, and booking are collapsing into a single flow. The result is a calmer, faster decision loop with fewer handoffs between platforms.

Agentic Payments and Invisible Checkout

Another major unlock for this calmer travel experience was payments.

Our feature on Agentic Commerce and Payments examined how Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (A2P) and PayPal’s ChatGPT integration allow AI agents to book flights, hotels, and services end to end. Checkout becomes a background capability rather than a manual step.

That matters because most trips fall apart at friction points. Removing checkout friction changes completion rates.

Identity, Movement, and the Apple Wallet Stack

Apple moved in the same direction this year.

In USA Digital Passports Come to Apple Wallet we covered how storing passports in Apple Wallet turns the iPhone into a single key for identity, payments, access, and movement. TSA checks, hotel rooms, rental cars, and transit can all tie back to one device.

Travel is not just booking. It is identity verification repeated again and again. Apple’s approach made that loop simpler.

Smart Glasses and Heads-Up Travel Hardware

Hardware quietly re-entered the travel conversation in 2025.

A Beyond Tech feature on Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses and Alibaba’s Quark AI glasses framed smart eyewear as early heads-up travel hardware. Translation, navigation, and capture happen without pulling attention away from the moment.

AI Travel Chatbots and “Just Trust Me” Planning

Several Beyond Tech features focused on AI planners that reduce decision fatigue.

In April, Is Manus AI the DeepSeek Moment for AI Agents? covered how Manus AI gained attention by independently executing complex tasks like planning a full 7-day Japan trip with flights, hotels, attractions, and weather in one go.

Another feature positioned Airial as “planning a trip as easy as texting a friend,” turning short prompts into complete itineraries with hotels, activities, and previews stitched together.

The shift was not chat interfaces. It was trust. Users let agents decide so they do not have to.

Transport, Venues, and Experience Infrastructure

Earlier in the year, The Future of Transport Is in Motion expanded the scope of travel tech beyond flights and hotels. Electric vehicles, autonomous systems, and rethought urban transit were part of the same transformation.

Another Beyond Tech edition examined the Intuit Dome’s Connectopia concept as a preview of how airports, cruise terminals, and resorts could operate once AI-first experience layers become standard.

High-End Travel, Bleisure, and Experience as a Service

A late-year Beyond Tech feature on the record-breaking winter travel season zoomed in on luxury travel and bleisure.

Hotels are investing in meeting-grade bandwidth, AI-supported concierge systems, and predictive planning that recommends dining and activities based on preferences and availability. The upgrade is not just space. It is responsiveness.

Messaging as the New Travel Interface

If AI agents became the brains of travel, messaging became the nervous system.

In November, How WhatsApp Became the World’s New Booking Desk showed how airlines, hotels, and agencies are shifting quotes, documents, changes, and support into WhatsApp threads. The chat becomes a living itinerary.

Creator-Run Trips and the Distributed Travel Ecosystem

Another Beyond Tech feature explored how creators are becoming operators.

Travel APIs and AI tooling now allow experts to sell fully bookable trips under their own brands. Distribution spreads beyond large OTAs, and creators move from inspiration to execution.

Immersive Tourism and Reconstructed Worlds

A summer feature on AI Archaeology Travel examined how AI and VR enable time-based tourism. Pompeii before the eruption. Closed corridors of the Forbidden City. Reconstructed WWI trenches.

As AR becomes more common, these layers will increasingly sit on top of real places.

The StubHub of Travel and the End of Waste

One of the most structural shifts we covered was the rise of a secondary market for unused travel.

The idea of a “StubHub of travel” tackled the $32B travel-waste problem of expiring tickets and prepaid stays. Flexibility and resale are moving toward the core of travel expectations.

What 2025 Shows Us About Where Travel Is Now

Taken together, the Beyond Tech coverage from 2025 shows a sector that has matured.

AI has moved into the background. Booking flows have collapsed. Messaging has replaced apps in many markets. Identity, payment, and access are converging. Experiences are curated, automated, and repeatable.

Travel did not just become more complicated and a bigger market than ever before this year. It became quieter and more personalized.

And that may be the clearest signal of all for the future of travel and leisure in 2026 and beyond.