Google Flights can help you book a trip when you don’t know where to go

It seems similar Google is looking for a mode to put AI into everything these days, and present its efforts person reached its airfare-booking service, Flights. On Thursday, Google announced that it’s investigating a caller AI-powered Flight Deals tool, which could travel successful useful if you’re readying a travel connected a fund but aren’t rather definite wherever you privation to spell yet.

Instead of conscionable entering your preferred airdrome and destination, Flight Deals takes a much open-ended approach. You tin picture the benignant of spot you’d similar to visit, and adjacent get circumstantial astir however agelong you privation to beryllium connected a level and what activities you’d similar to bash erstwhile you get there. Google volition past usage AI to travel up with inexpensive flights that lucifer your preferences. For example, you tin hunt for “a play countryside getaway with way rides and kayaking” oregon a “trip to Europe with large food and vino successful May,” and spot what pops up. 

While utilizing Flight Deals, I recovered that it surfaced a premix of evident abrogation spots and immoderate lesser-known locations. When looking for “a tropical destination with snorkeling,” it showed maine spots similar Cozumel, Mexico; Nassau, Bahamas; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, which were predictable but viable suggestions. But a hunt for a “trip to Europe with hiking” showed suggestions for a mates of cities that I wouldn’t person thought of — Cluj-Napoca, Romania and Ljubljana, Slovenia — which is bully if you’re looking for thing disconnected the beaten path.

Still, immoderate of the results I got weren’t utile astatine all. When searching for “a tropical play travel that’s little than 5 hours away” from the Orlando airport, it yielded results for Miami and Key West, which whitethorn not beryllium perfect for idiosyncratic looking to question extracurricular the state. I besides managed to stump it by searching for “trips to Japan during cherry blossom season” — it said it recovered “no deals” for this search. 

If you don’t specify erstwhile you’d similar to visit, Google volition default to showing you flights wrong the adjacent six months. You tin besides play astir with immoderate of the filters, similar however galore stops you want, oregon which hose you’d similar — but the bully happening astir this AI-powered revamp is that you don’t person to.

Despite immoderate hiccups, I could inactive spot myself trying retired Flight Deals if I’m looking for question ideas that aren’t ace retired of my budget. I astir apt wouldn’t entrust AI with readying retired my full trip, but having it make immoderate destination ideas, which I tin past bash much probe on, doesn’t hurt. Google Flight Deals is rolling retired successful beta to users successful the US and Canada implicit the adjacent week. You tin find it connected the standalone Flight Deals page, oregon successful the top-left paper connected Google Flights.