ixigo unveils AI-powered chatbot to resolve traveler’s queries

NEW DELHI: ixigo, one of India’s leading travel search marketplace, has launched ‘ixibaba’ — an artificial intelligence chatbot designed to simplify the lives of travelers. Along with the human-like-persona of a savvy ‘baba’, ixibaba provides quick, quirky answers to all travel planning and booking related queries.

The company says that ixibaba will help Indian travelers find the best way to plan their trip by conversing with them on topics across flights, hotels, buses, cabs, places to visit and vacation destinations. Apart from using ixigo’s proprietary meta-search engine to find where the cheapest travel deals are, the chatbot also covers weather, things to do in a city and even find offbeat adventure activities.

Claimed to be the first in the Indian travel space, this development is in line with the advances in chat technology and customer interaction. On the new product launch, ixigo CEO & Co-Founder, Aloke Bajpai said, “ixibaba is a personal travel assistant that can help you with all your travel queries just like a knowledgeable friend would. With platforms such as Facebook messenger and Whatsapp reaching a critical mass of over a billion users, chat based information and commerce is bound to take off. We believe we are at the forefront of this evolution when it comes to travel!”

Rajnish Kumar, CTO & Co-Founder also said, “It took us one year to build ixibaba and it will continue evolving as it learns from real interactions with travelers, since we use artificial intelligence and deep-learning. In tests with over 1000 users, we have seen a nearly 80% accuracy in recognizing travel related queries, and we expect this to continue improving.”

ixibaba has learnt from over 30 million data points across destinations, points of interest, routes, things to do and travel trivia from India and across the world. He will not only tell you all he knows about them but also give you real time information such as the weather, travel routes, flight timings, train status, etc. You will get answers to questions as simple as “What are the cheapest flights to Mumbai tomorrow” or “Find me things to do in Goa in December” or “Flight schedule of 6E184” or “How to go from Patna to Ahmedabad” to complex questions such as “Show me hotels with a pool in Jaipur for under 2000” or “What are some good weekend getaways from Delhi this season?”