For two decades, the structure of the travel industry remained remarkably stable.

Travelers searched, compared, booked and experienced in a linear funnel shaped by search engines, OTAs, metasearch platforms and increasingly sophisticated digital marketing systems.

But according to leaders across the Agentic AI Series titled “The Rise of Agentic AI in 2026” by Dan Christian, founder & host of the Travel Trends Podcast, that structure is now beginning to break down.

The series, brings together leading voices from across AI, travel technology and hospitality to explore how autonomous AI systems are reshaping the industry.

Participants include the industry experts: Gilad Berenstein of Brook Bay Capital, Tahnee Perry, AI Expert Consultant, Christian Watts of Magpie, Ben Manzi, Co-founder and COO of Maya, Michelle Denogean, CMO of Mindtrip, Brianna MacNeil, Director of AI Products, Personalization, TravelAI, Jeff Kischuk, CEO of Tripian, Jessie Fischer, Founder and CEO of GuestOS, and Marius Nigond, CEO of iWander.

What is emerging instead is not just another wave of travel technology — but a fundamentally different architecture for how travel decisions are made: one where AI agents sit between intent and action, collapsing discovery, planning, booking and personalization into a single intelligent layer.

Industry experts increasingly describe this shift as the move from tools to agents — from systems that respond, to systems that act.

“We are in the agentic era of AI,” said Gilad Berenstein. “AI agents are being deployed globally to assist in complex tasks.”

Unlike generative AI, which focuses on producing content, agentic AI systems are designed to execute actions autonomously — booking, recommending, resolving queries, managing workflows and dynamically adapting to context in real time.

That shift, leaders argue, is not incremental. It is structural.

From search to delegation

One of the clearest disruptions is happening at the very top of the travel funnel: discovery.

For decades, travelers actively searched for inspiration, compared options and manually constructed itineraries. That behavior is now beginning to shift toward conversational interfaces and AI-mediated decision-making.

“It’s almost unfathomable to go back to the way we used to search and peck and hunt,” said Michelle Denogean.

Instead of browsing dozens of tabs or platforms, travelers are increasingly delegating decisions to AI systems capable of understanding intent, constraints and context.

This has profound implications for visibility and marketing.

“You need to have a plan for that because if you don’t, you won’t show up,” warned Tahnee Perry, referring to the rise of AI-driven discovery systems.

In this emerging model, traditional SEO and paid acquisition strategies may no longer be sufficient. Instead, brands will need to optimize for AI interpretation, structured data, contextual relevance and machine-readable content that can be surfaced by autonomous agents.

The collapse of operational layers

While discovery is being transformed, the operational backbone of travel is also undergoing a radical redesign.

Agentic AI systems are increasingly capable of handling repetitive, low-value and high-volume tasks that once required large teams and complex workflows.

“Low judgment work like general question proposal requests… was very time consuming for companies and today that’s eliminated completely,” said Ben Manzi.

This shift is not only increasing efficiency — it is fundamentally changing how travel companies are structured.

“What you’re seeing is AI moving from novelty to utility,” said Jeff Kischuk.

In his view, the real transformation lies in data infrastructure, the ability to connect fragmented travel information into systems that allow AI agents to make relevant, real-time decisions.

“Do they have the right context? Do they have the right relevance?” he asked.

That focus on context is becoming central to how AI systems will operate across the travel ecosystem.

Human roles are not disappearing, they are being redefined

Despite concerns about automation, industry leaders consistently emphasize that human roles in travel are not disappearing, but evolving.

“A travel advisor, what makes them special is them and their experience and their personality,” said Tahnee Perry. “The profession of a travel advisor is safe.”

Rather than replacing human expertise, AI is increasingly seen as a force that removes operational friction so that human judgment, taste and emotional intelligence become more valuable.

“AI is excellent at doing those repetitive mundane tasks that allow staff to focus on experiences,” said Jesse Fischer

This reallocation of effort, from administrative work to experiential value creation — is expected to redefine roles across hospitality, advisory services and travel operations.

“We need to be honest at what we’re better at and when we should hand off to the chatbot,” said Christian Watts.

The rise of context as competitive advantage

As the traditional funnel collapses, a new competitive dimension is emerging: context.

Travel decisions are increasingly expected to be dynamic, adaptive and personalized in real time — not static or pre-defined.

“Context actually matters almost more than data points on the customer,” said Marius Nigond

This shift marks a transition from traditional personalization — based on historical behavior — to continuous personalization driven by real-time signals such as location, intent, behavior and environment.

“This next era of personalization… will lead to better trips for travelers and more value for travel sellers,” saidBrianna McNeil.

In this model, AI systems are not simply recommending experiences, they are continuously adapting them.

A new competitive landscape

Perhaps the most disruptive implication of the agentic shift is how it reshapes competition itself.

As AI tools become more accessible, the historical advantages of scale, large teams, budgets and infrastructure, begin to erode.

“This is the golden era of small and medium businesses,” said Tahnee Perry.

At the same time, the ability to build AI-powered systems is becoming faster and cheaper than ever before.

But distribution remains a critical challenge.

“Just because you can build something amazing doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to get distribution with it,” warned Christian Watts.

This tension, between democratized creation and still-centralized distribution — may define the next phase of competition in travel.

From funnel to intelligence layer

Taken together, these shifts point to a broader structural conclusion emerging from the Agentic AI discussions: The travel funnel is no longer linear. It is being replaced by an intelligent, adaptive system in which AI agents continuously interpret intent, retrieve context, evaluate options and execute actions on behalf of users.

Discovery, planning, booking and personalization are no longer separate stages. They are collapsing into a single decision layer.

And in that system, the winners may not be the companies with the biggest budgets or the strongest SEO strategies, but those that are most compatible with how AI understands, interprets and acts on travel intent.

As the industry moves deeper into the agentic era, one question increasingly defines the competitive landscape: Not who owns the customer journey, but who gets interpreted by the machine.