AI Won’t Automate Travel Advisors, But It Could Still Be a Disaster for the Industry

There’s not a bigger buzzword in the travel agency community, or probably in the world in general, this year than artificial intelligence (A.I.).

I’ve been thinking a lot about how A.I. is going to change travel over the next five years. My first instinct was that this continued invasion of technology into our lives is going to drive consumers to look for more experiences that will have them disconnect away from their technology, a feeling I’ve experienced personally over the past year or so. More experiential travel, more authentic experiences, and more opportunities for advisors to design something truly unique for their clients.

The second thought I had was that this is going to transform how advisors are running their businesses, a thought that has become reality for so many who are no longer dragged down by having to spend time coming up with social media posts, organizing data, or analyzing business costs, et cetera. The mundane, the things that are black holes in your day, the tasks that you dread, they can all be automated, often without an admin or outside help. It’s going to be, and already has for so many, a boon.

My last thought, however, is the one that worries me most, and the one that has not yet come true:

A.I.’s biggest impact on the travel industry won’t be felt in the boarding process or agency efficiencies, but instead in how it impacts unemployment. The greatest danger for the travel industry is A.I. potentially driving a surge in white-collar unemployment—a demographic that includes the managers, analysts, and professionals who fund most of the leisure travel boom the industry’s has rode since the pandemic. These are the clients booking business class, all-inclusive resorts, and international trips.

We are still very much in the early innings of this A.I. revolution—ChatGPT was only made widely available to the public at the end of November 2022—but there are already signs that A.I. could have a disastrous impact on the employment of the people who make up the majority of travel agency clients. Here’s some of the evidence pointing to the thought:

• Dario Amodei, the CEO of A.I. company Anthropic, recently said that up to 50% of junior white-collar jobs in finance, law, and technology could vanish within five years.
• A report from Goldman Sachs estimated that A.I. could automate 300 million full-time jobs globally, particularly in administrative work and the legal sectors.
• Companies like Meta, IBM, and others have indicated that their operations will increasingly shift non-customer-facing work to A.I. According to Crunchbase’s Tech Layoffs Tracker, over 130,000 tech workers have lost their jobs in 2025, a lot of it because of efficiencies created by A.I.
• According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates (ages 22–27), who are entering an expected long career in these fields and roles, reached 4.8% in June 2025, surpassing the 4.0% rate for the overall workforce. That is a reversal of historical norms, where college grads typically enjoyed lower unemployment than the general population.

Now there’s a lot of noise about A.I.-related layoffs and the U.S. unemployment rate has only gone up 0.3% this year, from 4% in January to 4.3% in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel and one of the most well known hedge fund managers in the U.S., said on Thursday to CNBC that he doesn’t think A.I. has had a significant impact at all on unemployment.

Still, using the tools myself, seeing what they can do, and hearing from advisors about what they can do for their businesses, it’s difficult not to fear what it might do for a section of the economy and beyond. If your client can no longer afford to book two international trips a year, that drop in high-value demand is undoubtedly going to directly impact your business.

I don’t think there’s much worry about advisors losing bookings because a client might like to chat with ChatGPT or Gemini or another A.I. tool about their travel. This absolute flood of information that consumers now face on the internet actually makes me think that advisors will play an even larger role, being able to sort through a firehose of information.

And I really don’t think the clients who may opt for this kind of travel booking experience haven’t already opted to book on their own via an OTA or Costco or something else.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens over the next few years, not only where A.I. goes or what it will be able to do (get ready to be comfortable getting in a driverless Uber or Waymo if you haven’t already), but how it transforms employment in the U.S. and beyond. I think that’s where the biggest danger is for travel advisors right now.

The good news is that this is an issue that will extend far beyond the travel industry, and one that will, hopefully, after a lot of transformation, inevitably be solved. It’s also something that isn’t necessarily knocking on the door right now, but may be sometime in the future.

Until then, advisors should be, and mostly are, fully embracing the technology, to streamline their operations as interest in travel and consumer desire to vacation remains as high as its ever been. Dance while the music is playing.