Travel marketplace ixigo has launched ‘ixibaba’ – an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, which provides quick, quirky answers to all travel planning and booking related queries. The chatbot will help Indian travellers by conversing with them on topics across flights, hotels, buses, cabs, places to visit and vacation destinations. Apart from using ixigo’s proprietary meta-search engine to find where the cheap travel deals, the chatbot also covers weather, things to do in a city and offbeat adventure activities.
On its launch, Aloke Bajpai, CEO and co-founder, ixigo, said, “ixibaba is a personal travel assistant that can help you with all your travel queries just like a knowledgeable friend would. With platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp reaching a critical mass of over a billion users, chat based information and commerce is bound to take off. We believe we are at the forefront of this evolution when it comes to travel.”
Rajnish Kumar, CTO and co-founder, added, “It took us one year to build ixibaba and it will continue evolving as it learns from real interactions with travellers, since we use artificial intelligence and deep-learning. In tests with over 1,000 users, we have seen a nearly 80 per cent accuracy in recognising travel related queries, and we expect this to continue improving.”
The chatbot has learnt from over 30 million data points across destinations, points of interest, routes, things to do and travel trivia from India and across the world.
