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Online Travel

Microsoft Wants to Bring Travel Bots to Skype Messaging

Dan Peltier

Photo Credit: A demo of a hypothetical Westin bot within Microsoft's Skype app at Microsoft's Build conference in San Francisco this week. Microsoft

Skift Take

We'll jump at the chance for automated expense reporting whenever we can and Microsoft's Cortana and Skype bots have potential to help travelers book trips. We just need to see whether travelers will trust bots as they've trusted their own booking capabilities in the past.

First came Slack, then came Skype — at least to the messaging app bot game. Microsoft, which owns Skype, demoed how an updated Cortana would integrate travel expense reporting and hotel booking at its Build conference in San Francisco this week. Cortana now works in the background of the Skype app, understanding both video and SMS conversations within the app, to proactively make suggestions and perform tasks relevant to the conversation and upcoming events a traveler refers to. Cortana is exclusively for Android smartphones and Microsoft's Windows operating system but Skype isn't its only domain. As Microsoft explained, Cortana also integrate

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