Google is introducing new AI-powered features designed to help users book and plan travel directly within Search. The company announced on Monday that it is expanding the availability of its AI-powered Flight Deals tool. It is also adding the ability for users to organize travel plans using the Canvas tool in AI Mode and is launching agentic booking capabilities to a wider audience.
Flight Deals was first launched in August in the United States, Canada, and India. Now, Google is expanding this AI-powered search tool within Google Flights globally to assist people in quickly finding affordable travel destinations. To use the tool, users simply describe where, when, and how they want to travel. Flight Deals will then use artificial intelligence to display the best available bargains. This tool is now rolling out to more than two hundred countries and territories worldwide, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea. It also now supports more than sixty languages.
Regarding the new AI Mode features, Google states that users can now utilize the built-in Canvas tool to create detailed travel plans. Canvas was initially launched as a way to build study plans and organize information across multiple sessions in a side panel. It can now be used to help plan upcoming trips. Users need to tell AI Mode what type of trip they are looking for and then select the Create with Canvas option.
Immediately, a plan will appear in the Canvas side panel that brings together real-time Search data for flights and hotels. It also includes details from Google Maps, such as photos and reviews, and relevant information from sites across the web. The tool provides suggestions that fit the user’s criteria, such as hotel comparisons based on pricing and amenities or ideas for restaurants and activities optimized by travel time from the user’s accommodation. Users can ask follow-up questions and get help with tradeoffs, for example, choosing a hotel that is closer to a desired restaurant but a bit farther from planned hiking trails.
Travel planning with Canvas is currently available on desktop in the United States for users who are opted into the AI Mode experiment in Labs.
Additionally, Google announced it is expanding AI Mode’s agentic capabilities to more people. Earlier this year, the company announced that users opted into Labs could get help with booking restaurant reservations, event tickets, and beauty and wellness appointments in AI Mode. Now, this capability is being made available to all users in the United States.
Users can request dinner reservations based on multiple preferences, including party size, date, time, location, and preferred cuisine. AI Mode will then search across different reservation platforms to find real-time availability for matching restaurants. It surfaces a curated list of options for the user to choose from.
In the future, Google says it will enable users to finish booking flights and hotels directly within AI Mode. Users will be able to describe what they are looking for and then compare different flights or hotels while browsing information such as schedules, prices, room photos, amenities, and reviews.