In the world of travel tech, Acai Travel stands out with its suite of LLM-based travel operations products. Founded by Riccardo Vittoria and Henry Chen Weinstein, Acai Travel is on a mission to bring AI-powered solutions to travel operations, making life easier for a wide range of clients, including travel management companies, online travel agencies, airlines, hotels, and travelers.
Acai Travel's solutions aim to restructure travel operations with flexible setups, targeting up to 60% reduction in average handle time and potentially halving operational costs. Their product suite includes a travel-specific knowledge management system, chat and email automation, and a user-friendly Global Distribution System overlay in natural language.
Today, we’ll hear from Pavel Pratyush. Pavel is co-piloting their operation as Head of Engineering and one of the founding members of Acai Travel. His blend of industry expertise and academic background in computer science drives Acai Travel's innovative approach to AI.
Acai's AI: augment rather than replace human expertise
Acai Travel's philosophy sets them apart in the AI landscape. "We focus on augmenting people rather than replacing them," Pavel explains. This approach addresses a critical issue in the travel industry: a need for more qualified travel specialists and increasing demand post-COVID.
Instead of fully automating processes, Acai Travel aims to boost efficiencies and customer satisfaction with existing staff. Their AI tools help travel agents handle complex bookings, summarize emails, and quickly access and share accurate information.
The challenge: scaling AI-powered travel operations
As Acai Travel sought to shake up the industry, they faced significant challenges in gathering and processing vast amounts of travel data to power their AI models. The travel industry is dynamic, with constantly changing information from flight schedules to hotel availability – demanding a potent solution.
Pavel describes just how complex the travel tech industry is, "We're grabbing information from over 100 airlines. Each website is a world of its own, with different structures, JavaScript dependencies, and bot protection mechanisms."
The Apify alliance
In their search for a powerful and flexible data collection tool, Acai Travel discovered Apify. The platform’s developer-centric approach immediately appealed to the tech-savvy team.
Pavel's interest in Apify went beyond just its technical capabilities. He reached out directly to Jan Curn, Apify's founder and CEO, for a conversation. "I spoke with Jan himself for about 40 minutes," Pavel recalls. "I told him where we're coming from, and we had a very nice conversation. I thought, 'Yeah, I can trust this guy building this company.'"
"I come from a mindset where if somebody is doing something good, you'd rather ally with them rather than try to do it yourself. And I honestly believe that Apify is doing great work when it comes to the tech. So I’m happy to leverage them and grow my business."
The solution
Acai Travel needed a smart way to scrape data from various airline websites and scale quickly. Pavel notes their rapid progress:
"At one point, we were onboarding 10 airlines a week. That couldn't have happened without Apify."
The ease of getting started was really useful for Acai's fast-paced team. Pavel explains:
"The barrier to entry was cool. You sign up, have a $5 credit, and can create your Tasks in 10 minutes to see if it works for you."
This allowed Acai Travel to scale up its proof of concept and data collection quickly. In discussing dealing with Apify’s support, Pavel added, "Whenever we ask technical questions, we always get back some really helpful responses."
Implementation and results
Pavel is impressed by Website Content Crawler, available on Apify Store. 'We really use the basic Content Crawler built by Apify itself. We just use one type of Actor, and then we have replicated that for our use case,' Pavel explains. This simplicity and effectiveness have been key to their rapid integration and scaling.
The results have been impressive. Acai Travel can now provide its AI tools with accurate, up-to-date information from hundreds of airlines. This allows them to create tools like their “AI Helper” chat assistant, which gives agents quick access to verified airline policies and terms and conditions – dramatically speeding up response times and ensuring the agent has the latest, correct information.
Website Content Crawler - data for AI
Future plans and industry impact
With a recent round of funding secured, Acai Travel is ready to grow! They're expanding their team and looking to tackle more of the supplier side of the travel industry, including hotel chains.
Pavel sees Apify as a big part of this expansion: "I'm seeing Apify as a Swiss army knife for data collection. Even if we have contracts with suppliers for internal data, using Apify could significantly reduce time to market."
As for the impact of AI on the travel industry, Pavel is optimistic. "AI is going to become a commodity, like electricity or the petrol engine. The applications are going to be something we don't even know yet."
Acai Travel's approach demonstrates how AI can support rather than replace human roles in the travel industry. By using tools like Apify to power their solutions, they're reimagining what's possible in travel operations and customer service.
