The holiday season has arrived, and Google has introduced a bunch of AI-powered travel features for Google Search. For starters, you can use the updated Canvas tool in AI Mode to build travel itineraries and customize them according to your preferences.
After you enter details such as your travel dates, number of people, destination, and other important recommendations, Canvas can display a plan in the side panel by analyzing real-time web search data, flights, and hotel availability.
The feature will show price comparisons for hotel bookings and list activities based on their travel time from your hotel location. Canvas and the new travel planning feature are currently available for desktop users in the US who have opted into the AI Mode experiment in Labs.
Google launched a new AI-powered tool called Flight Deals in the US, Canada, and India earlier this year. It"s part of Google Flights and lets you find the cheap fares and bargains between destinations using natural, conversational language queries.
Flight Deals is now expanding to over 200 countries globally with support for more than 60 languages. It"s rolling out to the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea, among other countries.
Google said it"s working with partners to bring flight booking and hotel reservations directly to AI Mode in the future. You"ll be able to complete the booking without leaving AI Mode after searching for flights and hotels, and asking follow-up questions to refine your options.
Apart from that, the search giant is also expanding AI Mode"s agentic features to more users. AI Mode can take some of the work off your shoulders by finding restaurant reservations, event tickets, and wellness appointments across multiple platforms.
The feature curates a list of suggestions with direct links based on the preferences you mention, from which you can finalize the booking. Agentic booking for restaurants is now rolling out to AI Mode users living in the US. Meanwhile, agentic booking for event tickets and local appointments is currently available for Labs users in the US.