The Venture Capital View on Generative AI in Travel
Skift Take
Fewer engineers. Leaner teams. Faster launches. As generative AI rewrites the rules of startup economics, investors like Cara Whitehill are rethinking how to scale, compete, and even invest.
Cara Whitehill, Vice President at Thayer Investment Partners, brings a bold investor lens to the Skift Data + AI Summit stage.
As generative AI slashes the cost of launching and scaling startups, she sees a shift as seismic as the rise of SaaS and cloud computing. One that’s not only transforming how companies are built, but also how investors create value.
Ahead of her session, Whitehill unpacks the trends she’s watching closely, the AI tools disrupting travel and hospitality, and the breakthrough she believes could finally unify the fragmented travel journey.
Where do you see the biggest opportunities — or risks — for generative AI in your business?
“Speaking from the investor perspective, Generative AI is rapidly reducing the costs to start a company, which means startups need less overall capital to launch and scale. It’s similar to how cloud computing and SaaS software caused a downward step function in lowering the costs to start a company – you no longer needed to invest in buying and maintaining a ton of servers or software infrastructure (and the personnel to oversee them), because you could effectively outsource that and pay incrementally for just what you needed.”
“The rapid proliferation of GenAI-based tools for coding, marketing and customer support mean startups don’t have to hire a bunch of expensive engineers or large sales and customer support teams.”
But with that shift comes a bigger question for venture capital itself: if startups need less money, how do investors stay relevant?
“This poses some interesting questions for the venture capital sector. If overall capital needs per startup go down, will that mean a contraction in overall demand for VC investment? Or will it open the door to even more new demand as it gets easier to start a tech business – maybe less capital per startup, but far more startups overall driving an increased demand for VC.”
“If capital becomes even more commoditized, how can VC firms stand out to make sure they’re the partner of choice for the best founding teams? I think this presents a fantastic opportunity for investors to become true collaboration partners with their portfolio companies by sharing insights, networks and operating expertise, beyond just writing checks and showing up to Board meetings every quarter.”
What emerging trends in AI or data are you watching most closely right now?
“I’m super excited at the convergence of visual and voice AI, particularly in B2B applications. There are a ton of interesting use cases for front-line workers who are still relying on heavily manual workflows – think of anyone who doesn’t work at a desk, like maintenance workers, restaurant and hospitality staff, housekeeping crews, airport staff, etc.”
“Most of them still have to manually type in (or even handwrite!) data into various applications, which is slow and prone to error. Imagine how much more productive they will be when they can simply speak into their phone or scan a photo to capture data. We’re already seeing this in other industry sectors like healthcare and retail, and a handful of startups in travel like Beekeeper, AiOla and NLX cracking into the travel sector with some pretty slick technology.”
If you had to place a big bet on one AI breakthrough that could reshape travel, what would it be?
“I’m bullish on the intersection of agentic AI, identity and payments. This will be the unlock for finally kicking down the silos that make a stitched together travel journey such a challenge right now.”
“The entire journey lifecycle is fragmented today because the data about our trips is scattered across dozens of suppliers and applications that don’t talk to one another or share pertinent information with each other. Self-sovereign digital identity will flip that script and return ownership of my profile, preferences and transactions back to me, where I can authorize what to share with whom and when.”
“Agentic AI is already driving standardization in connectivity to make data interoperable. And advances in payment technology are already well underway outside of the travel sector, so it’s only a matter of time before they can be hooked into consumer purchase flows and B2B platforms. We’ll no longer have to use a dozen different apps for a single trip; we’ll just have one single interface to manage everything from start to finish.”
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