Gonzalo Estebarena, Chief Technology Officer of Grupo Despegar, commented: “With this new development we reimagine the user experience, making the system adapt to them and not the user to understand how to use it. “SOFIA is unique in that it can do things that were never thought of in the flow of a site or mobile application.”
“Despegar” revolutionizes the tourism industry by becoming the first company to launch a travel assistant that integrates Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), with an incremental and adaptive visual interface. “ SOFIA” accompanies travelers from the moment the idea of undertaking a new experience appears, through the planning and coordination of the trip itself, until their return.
Just by saying “ I want to surf ”, the conversation with SOFIA is enabled. That is to say, the interaction with Despegar begins, neither more nor less than seeking inspiration for the next trip. The user can talk or exchange messages but can also choose options that SOFIA displays from a destination catalog.
It highlights that it is no longer a chatBot, it is a true digital travel assistant, where even the traveler can do without chat and interact only by touching visual elements or speaking. Furthermore, just as in a human interaction, with SOFIA you do not have to follow a pre-established order of conversation, it is a dynamic conversation, an exchange of ideas that concludes in concrete recommendations.
SOFIA has the ability to adapt to the customer's reaction, she is an empathetic travel agent, she can incorporate the response into her next suggestion, something a traditional site cannot do. All this, enhanced by the unique knowledge of the Despegar Group's more than 30 million customers.
Interaction with SOFIA can evolve into a self-assisted purchasing experience and even facilitate contact with a member of the Despegar team, either for sales or post-sale queries.
Gonzalo Estebarena, Chief Technology Officer of Grupo Despegar, commented: “ With this new development we reimagine the user experience, making the system adapt to them and not the user to understand how to use it. SOFIA is unique in that it can do things that were never thought of in the flow of a site or a mobile application, the traveler simply tells it what they would like to do and has the flexibility to prepare it without having to have planned or thought about it. "Developing that interaction in advance, something necessary in traditional electronic commerce . "
A dedicated team of experts built this solution supported by technologies such as ChatGPT-4, Whisper by OpenAI and the scalable AWS platform, all of which allows us to provide a more natural experience tailored to the needs of each person.
“We are very excited, this launch represents a paradigm shift in the travel industry and we are proud to be the first to offer this type of technology that, without a doubt, will take the user experience to another level.” Estebarena emphasized.
Among other benefits, AI technologies make it possible to improve operational efficiency, offering personalized products and services in a scalable way and providing increasingly intuitive experiences for customers.
This new tool, which will acquire new and better functionalities throughout the year, is now available throughout the region, and comes to reinforce the company's omnichannel strategy and combine its entire product portfolio.
By: Lic. Israel Urbina, with information from a press release
