While the travel landscape is shifting as artificial intelligence (AI) advances, Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group, isn't overly concerned.
"One thing I guarantee you, travel cannot be disintermediated," Diller said during an executive interview at The Phocuswright Conference in San Diego.
He further asserted that AI is disrupting Google's search dominance.
"We have all lived a generation where we have lived in the monopoly of Google. They are a complete monopoly in search. They have been, to almost this day," he said.
"Now that AI has a chance, that search monopoly experience of Google is going to end. What its consequences are to Google, I can't say. They're a giant company. They've got all sorts of other things they do," he said, noting that YouTube is becoming "internet television."
"Believe me, do not worry about Google. But for all of us who've been serfs in the land of Google, as Google has increasingly taken share of the whole page and rendered relatively new queries as they continue to take over that page, this is ending, and it is all of our opportunity."
Diller returned to The Phocuswright Conference stage after two decades, also speaking about his portfolio, career, philanthropy and the resilience of travel, encouraging fellow entrepreneurs to "ask the question."
"If you've got that yearn in you, that bug, at some point, grab it -- because every year that you don't, you will have some [feeling like] that was it. I can't regret it. I can't face the idea that I'll keep putting this off and say, 'Oh, two years from now.' It would be a life of regret," he said.
See below for the full discussion with Phocuswright's Lorraine Sileo.
Source: PhocusWire