AI Is Changing the Game for Travel Startups — Here’s What Excites Amex Ventures Most

AI isn’t just reshaping the travel industry — it’s also unlocking new opportunities for startup founders to innovate and scale faster, said Kevin Tsang, managing director of Amex Ventures, the investment arm of American Express.

Tsang said on the Skift Travel Podcast that he believes startup founders "are able to do a lot more with less now."

"You can imagine manual tasks that can be done much more efficiently. So if you had an idea before that was difficult to scale because there was this semi-manual component, this kind of opens up the aperture," he said, adding he sees a lot of "excitement" surrounding the tools that can turn ideas into working prototypes.

Tsang joined American Express in 2011 and Amex Ventures has invested in more than 100 companies, including travel brands Mindtrip, Superlogic, and Boom Supersonic.

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Tsang provided Mindtrip as one example of the "with a blank slate approach."

"(Mindtrip executives)" said, 'If you were going to build a travel planning platform today and you knew you had these tools, what would you do?' And I think for us, that was a really compelling vision," Tsang said. "They're continuing to find new ways to experiment with AI and the tools that might be needed for it."

Tsang cited Mindtrip's "Start Anywhere," a feature that can build an itinerary from any point of inspiration — such as a screenshot, a URL, or even a post on social media — noting that AI is increasingly intersecting with social commerce and creator-driven inspiration.

He also addressed Amex Ventures' investment in Boom Supersonic, a company back in the spotlight after the U.S. government recently cleared supersonic flights over the U.S.

"You can kind of see why we were drawn to the future of travel that they were kind of exhibiting," Tsang said.

Tsang explained it's important to understand why travel people are traveling.

"We often talk about recommendations to people, but if you don't know why someone is going on a trip, it's actually a big limiting factor in how you do that. And so, you might know someone's travel profile and how they like things," he said.

"But if you're going to recommend someone on a business trip versus their honeymoon versus a wellness (trip) ... it's actually a really interesting and compelling data point ..."

When asked about the role companies like Marriott, Booking.com, and Google would play in startups — as partners, acquirers, or even competitors — Tsang highlighted the benefits of partnerships.

"There's a lot of things in the travel sector that work and don't need to be recreated. So I wouldn't want a startup to go out and do that," Tsang said.

"So that's where partnerships or different types of collaboration will become. The startups are going to be able to focus on the net new things with extreme focus that hopefully will be complimentary to some of these big players."