Odessia

Travel · Artificial Intelligence · Consumer Tech

Acquisition

OpenAI acquires AI travel agent Odessia in acqui-hire deal

Shares of Expedia, Booking and Airbnb slid as investors priced in ChatGPT becoming a direct travel-booking competitor.

• OpenAI acquired AI travel-agent startup Odessia on undisclosed terms and immediately shut down its standalone product.
• Odessia let users plan and book flights, hotels, transport and activities in a single conversational interface, running on OpenAI's GPT-5.5 and Codex models and holding IATA accreditation to issue tickets directly.
• Founder Francis Davidson, who also co-founded Sonder, is joining OpenAI to work on the future of travel.
• The year-old, eight-person startup had raised just $6M in pre-seed funding led by Sequoia and processed over $60M in annualized travel volume within months of its October 14 public launch.
• Davidson previously grew Sonder to roughly 1,000 employees and a $1B valuation before it collapsed post-SPAC, with shares falling about 99% and the company ceasing operations in late 2025.
• Expedia fell nearly 4%, Tripadvisor over 3%, and Booking Holdings over 2% the day of the deal, even though those same companies already partner with OpenAI inside ChatGPT.
• The deal shows OpenAI assembling the pieces to move from referring users to travel sites toward running bookings end-to-end inside ChatGPT, directly threatening the online travel agency model.