Building Travel Agents Of Tomorrow
On the company’s relevance a decade from now: We will definitely be relevant in 10 years from now, because we look at technology differently. We look 10 years ahead and our actions reflect that in today’s world. We will be a part of anything that will disrupt the industry, we will be a part of that disruption rather than being the disrupted company.
On the future of the business: The future of any business today is achieving singularity in its specific vertical and we want to achieve that in travel, which means we want to build the travel agent of tomorrow who will be an AI-driven virtual assistant. And, I think this is going to happen in every domain. We will be disrupted by us.
On the importance of AI and blockchain to the business: We have been dabbling with AI for almost five to six years, even when it was not really fashionable. But, for us, AI was a way of achieving something which was really hard to solve 10 years ago. With all the data we have in our business, AI was the only way to make sense of that data and solve some really hard problems.
On direct and indirect wealth creation: Travel is one of the biggest industries worldwide. There still is a lot of travel that happens offline, but this is going to change and there still is a lot of upside left in travel, especially in India.
On employment opportunities: Jobs will be created but it will also lead to a lot of them being made redundant by technology. AI will disrupt a lot of jobs but, if you look at how it can add to human civilisation value, I think we will have to figure out different ways of adding value as human beings because all those mundane routines will most likely be disrupted and automated by AI.
On the scope of niche businesses: It is about going deep now because the benchmarks of user experience have gone up significantly. People expect perfection in everything they use, hence, you will see a lot of niche businesses doing really well.
