The AI Divide in Indian Travel: What MakeMyTrip, Ixigo, TBO, and Yatra’s Earnings Calls Reveal
Photo Credit: An iPhone screen with multiple artificial intelligence apps. Adobe Stock / Robert
Skift Take
No Indian travel earnings call is complete without an AI pitch anymore. A closer reading of the latest calls from MakeMyTrip, Ixigo, TBO, and Yatra shows very different strategies, and varying levels of confidence about what comes next.
Last month, four of India’s largest travel companies — MakeMyTrip, Ixigo, TBO Tek and Yatra — held quarterly earnings calls within days of one another. All four spoke about AI, but revealed sharply different ideas about what AI will actually mean for travel, and how quickly it may change their businesses.
Some are rebuilding products around AI. Others are treating it as a tool to improve productivity. And at least one appears unconvinced that the industry is close to a meaningful disruption.
Ixigo: The Most Ambitious PitchDays after relaunching its app, Co-Founder and Co-CEO Rajnish Kumar used a significant portion of the company’s May 21 earnings call to describe “Ixigo NEXT,” which he framed as more than a chatbot added to an existing app. The company’s argument is that travel software itself is changing.
Instead of navigating menus and filters, users would increasingly interact conversationally with an app that remembers preference
