Subvolts take Booking.com's CEO shares how AI transforms travel planning and customer service. Jul 9, 2026 - Business
- Learn how a travel giant strategically invests in AI and balances technology with human service.
- Everyday users
- Understand how AI is making travel planning easier and what to expect from customer service.
This is a solid interview with the CEO of a major travel company discussing AI integration and strategy.
Travel Through the Lens of AI with with Booking.com CEO Glenn Fogel
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From Subvolts
Summary and analysis by Subvolts editorial, AI-assisted.
No Priors hosts Sarah Guo and Elad Gil interview Booking.com CEO Glenn Fogel about his career and the travel industry's evolution. Fogel discusses leveraging AI and agents like 'Penny' to enhance travel planning and customer service, while also noting the need for human support. The conversation covers Booking's substantial AI investment strategy, managing a global portfolio, and employee upskilling.
Booking.com's CEO talks about using AI to make booking trips easier and help customers. He explains how they invest in AI while still keeping human help available for when people need it most.
This episode offers insights into how a major travel company integrates AI into its operations and customer experience. It's for business leaders, strategists, and anyone interested in AI's practical applications beyond frontier labs. Listeners will learn about balancing AI efficiency with human touch, strategic tech investments, and workforce adaptation, connecting to current discussions on AI's broad economic impact.
- HostSarah Guo
- HostElad Gil
- GuestGlenn FogelCEO, Booking Holdings
- Guest: Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings
- Show: No Priors
- Length: 41 minutes
- Company Growth: Booking Holdings scaled over 1000x from hundreds of millions to over $100 billion.
- AI Investment: Booking is reinvesting over $700 million into AI and other technologies.
When Glenn Fogel joined Priceline in 2000, the business was worth a few hundred million dollars. One week later, the Nasdaq peaked, eventually sending its stock down to a dollar a share. But over 25 years later, Booking Holdings has scaled over 1000x into an over $100 billion dollar global travel behemoth. Elad Gil is joined by Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel to discuss his career, from law school and Wall Street to working at Priceline through the dot-com crash, and to helping grow the business into a multifaceted, dynamic travel marketplace in the AI era. Glenn explains how leveraging AI and agents such as Priceline’s ‘Penny’ makes travel planning and customer service better, while emphasizing the importance of preserving some human support for some users. He also talks about Booking’s strategy of reinvesting over $700 million into AI and other technologies while still offering stock buybacks and dividends, the durability of their scale and complexities of dealing with a large portfolio physical properties across the world, and why upskilling is so important for employees amid concerns about AI-driven job displacement.
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Chapters:
00:00 – Cold Open
00:05 – Glenn Fogel Introduction
00:41 – Glenn’s Early Career
06:49 – Lessons from the Early Internet
09:24 – Deciding Factors for Exiting
10:56 – Travel Through the Lens of AI
13:30 – Agentic Travel Planning
18:59 – Agents, Token Economics, and ROI
22:46 – Booking’s Capital Investment Philosophy
25:23 – Scale as Durable Asset
29:40 – Purpose and Choosing Wisely
33:18 – AI’s Impact on Jobs
36:38 – Upskilling in the AI Era
38:36 – Public Perception of AI
40:24 – Conclusion
- agents
- AI agents
- AI programs that can perform tasks for users, like booking travel.
39 min1 h 1136 minQuestions people ask
- How has Booking.com grown?
- Glenn Fogel joined Priceline when it was worth hundreds of millions; over 25 years later, Booking Holdings scaled over 1000x to over $100 billion.
- How does Booking.com use AI?
- Booking.com leverages AI and agents like 'Penny' to improve travel planning and customer service, while still preserving some human support.
Page generated Oct 19, 2026. Summaries are Subvolts' own; the audio, artwork and notes belong to Conviction.