by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 2:30 PM ET, Thu March 26, 2026
Despite the concerning impacts it’s having on the environment and the workplace, consumers – including travelers – continue to readily adopt artificial intelligence (AI) for daily tasks.
A new study from Phocuwright finds that the majority of U.S. travelers now use AI for trips, marking the “fastest behavioral shift in a decade,” says the market research company.
Specifically, more than half of U.S. leisure travelers now use artificial intelligence to plan, book or navigate their trips, according to the Phocuswright report titled The AI Surge: Travel's Fastest Behavioral Shift in a Decade. Some of the AI shifts taking place among travelers include:
- 56% of travelers used AI for at least one trip in the past 12 months, up sharply from 43% in late 2025 and more than double the share in 2024.
- Overall AI use among travelers – not limited to travel tasks – has climbed to 59%
- Standalone AI platforms remain the most widely used and most valued. 64% of AI travelers used them, and 81% said they were the most useful environment for AI‑powered trip planning
- Generative AI platforms (ChatGPT and Gemini) have surged to 33% usage for trip research, quintupling since 2024 and closing in on general search engines, which hold 35%.
“AI has crossed the threshold from curiosity to utility,” Pete Comeau, managing director of Phocuswright, said in a statement.
“Travelers are past the point of experimenting now – they’re integrating AI into the core of how they research and shape their trips. This is a structural shift, and it’s happening faster than anything we’ve tracked in the past decade,” Comeau added.
While they may be adopting AI rapidly, travelers still verify what they see when using the technology, rather than taking the information for granted. Only 8% said AI answers alone were sufficient. Moreover, 51% typically clicked through to source websites after receiving AI‑generated results.
But even here, behavior appears to be shifting: “AI is definitely reducing clickthrough in search overall, but travel is much more resilient because it’s higher stakes and verification-heavy, especially in the transaction phase. Which helps explain why Google and the OTAs continue to report solid financial results,” Mike Coletta, senior manager of research and innovation at Phocuswright, said.
Who’s adopting AI fastest?
So which generations are most readily adopting AI into their travel planning and experiences?
It seems millennials are leading the pack with a 74% adoption rate. Gen Z is not far behind at 72%, followed by Gen X at 50% and baby boomers more than doubled their adoption in six months, rising from 13% to 27%.
What are travelers using AI to do?
While AI may be providing information for trip planning, travelers increasingly rely on it once they arrive in their destinations.
More than half (51%) used AI for real‑time recommendations on what to do, and 95% rated it helpful for in‑destination tasks such as navigation, learning about neighborhoods and managing reservations.
Broader impacts of AI growth
While travelers, and the world at large, may be readily adopting AI to plan, book and experience travel, there are indeed some drawbacks to keep in mind with the new technology.
MIT News has reported that “the computational power required to train generative AI models…can demand a staggering amount of electricity, which leads to increased carbon dioxide emissions and pressures on the electric grid."
The MIT report adds that beyond electricity demands a great deal of water is required to cool the hardware used for training, deploying, and fine-tuning generative AI models. This in turn can strain municipal water supplies and disrupt local ecosystems. MIT experts have said the demand for new data centers cannot be met in a sustainable way.
Increased AI usage is also impacting jobs. Goldman Sachs Research estimates that 300 million jobs globally are exposed to automation by AI, meaning the jobs are at risk of being replaced by the technology.
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