Skyscanner has launched a suite of new beta tools, including an AI-powered Road Trip Planner and a natural-language destination discovery feature, as the travel platform responds to changing traveller needs ahead of the summer season.

Skyscanner helps more than 160 million travellers worldwide each month explore and compare flights, accommodation and car hire options. The Singapore-announced release marks the company’s latest push to embed AI across the booking journey.

“We’re focused on building tools that help them plan and book with confidence,” said Bryan Batista, CEO of Skyscanner, on the company’s approach to an increasingly complex travel landscape.

Explore with AI: natural language trip discovery

Explore with AI lets travellers describe what they want in plain language — such as “help me find cheap flights to Japan in December” — instead of entering fixed destinations and dates, and returns personalised recommendations with side-by-side comparisons of pricing, weather, flight duration and destination “vibes.” The tool also surfaces AI-generated insights, such as noting that a given month is cheaper to fly than another.

Currently available in English-speaking markets on Skyscanner’s website, the feature is in beta testing and recorded strong early engagement: 60% of travellers who used Explore with AI clicked through to view flight options, based on a company experiment involving 14,000 global English-speaking travellers.

Road Trip Planner and everyday savings tools

The Road Trip Planner, currently in beta on desktop across all markets, builds a personalised itinerary once a traveller enters a car hire pickup location, travel dates and route preference — choosing from Scenic Route, Fastest Route, Cultural Exploration, Adventure Trip or Relaxing Getaway. The AI then suggests stops, attractions and points of interest while matching travellers with car hire options.

Skyscanner also highlighted updates to two existing features: DROPS, which scans 100 billion prices daily and now surfaces up to 822% more daily deals meeting its 20%-or-higher price drop threshold, and a real-time Flight Tracker covering departures, arrivals, gates, terminals and baggage belt details.