AI Revolution at Ixigo: How Automation is Reshaping Travel Support, Revenue, and Personalization:

Suspense crime, Digital Desk : While every industry is adapting to new technologies, Ixigo, a leader in travel technology, is showcasing how little human labor is needed to manage huge customer bases. The company scaled from 488 to 509 employees in the previous year, but still manages to cater to over 400,000 users a day.

Kumar, Director and Group Co-CEO of Ixigo, claims this level of efficiency is due to the profound implementations of AI throughout the company, including customer service, marketing, HR, and many more. “AI helps us operate at scale without needing proportional growth in headcount,” he said.

AI Enhancement in Customer Service

The company’s transformation is spearheaded by their AI powered chatbot, TARA. “In FY 25 Q4 alone, TARA single-handedly resolved 2.11 million queries,” said Kumar. He added that 92% of customer queries along with 45000 flight-related queries are handled by AI these days.

Kumar expects within the next twelve months, AI systems will handle 60-80% of customer interactions, with only non-straightforward or emotionally charged scenarios requiring human interaction.

As a voice assistant, TARA can seamlessly speak in English, Hindi, and even Hinglish, interrupt, and keep a conversation going in real-time. Very often, customers do not realize they are engaging with an AI.

AI Just ChatGPT - It Goes Beyond While Improving Efficiency

Kumar mentioned sophisticated use cases, such as the AI calling hotels on its own to confirm bookings. Since booking a hotel room is still a problem in India, the AI monitors the calls for overbooking issues and takes action to secure the customer if there is a potential risk.

More so, AI improves the work done by people. Every call done by a person is monitored for provoked sentiment and sentiment scoring, and agents are able to receive real-time guidance to perform better. Even during live calls AI recommends answers to agents.

Earnings Growth

Ixigo also tied their AI strategy with business strategy. The AI team focuses on three areas: efficiency, revenue, and disruption. With a 30% uptake on value-added services, AI is increasing promotion and pricing to boost uptake and margin gain.

These services are based on AI algorithms that predict fare trends, which are used to offer features like ixigo Assured (fullrefunds guarantee) and Price Lock (fare freeze for a small fee) – making travel less risky for users while increasing revenue.

A Look at How Travel Applications Will Look Like in Coming Years

Kumar foresees a future in which travel applications operate and interact with users in a conversational manner as opposed to being transactional; these apps are memory-based and anticipate user requirements. "They'll be able to offer previous interactions to help make suggestions, which will make travel planning effortless and intuitive," he added. Kumar believes the future is hyper-personalized.

Humans First Ecosystem continues to evolve the human role and works to eliminate it at the same time. The blend of AI with human touch fosters the nurturing of tasks that are emotionally sophisticated and deeper contextual understanding that emotional intelligence offers.