For all the noise around artificial intelligence, its most convincing conquest of everyday life is happening quietly at the kitchen table, late at night, as travellers sketch out their next escape.
A new international survey shows that women and overseas travellers are ahead of the pack in using AI to plan their trips, not because it is fashionable, but because it works.
The Global Rescue Fall 2025 Traveller Safety and Sentiment Survey, which canvassed some of the world’s most experienced travellers, found that 22 per cent now use AI tools when organising travel. That number rises sharply once you step outside the United States. Nearly one in three international travellers (30 per cent) now lean on AI, compared with just one in five Americans.
Women, meanwhile, are adopting the technology a little faster than men, 24 per cent versus 22 per cent, a modest gap that nonetheless points to who is doing most of the practical work of assembling modern trips.
Most travellers have not yet crossed the AI threshold. About 73 per cent still plan the old-fashioned way, through web searches, apps and recommendations. But among those who have tested the technology, enthusiasm is building quickly.
“The data suggest that international travellers are leading the way in adopting AI for travel, using it to overcome logistical, linguistic and informational barriers,” said Dan Richards, chief executive of The Global Rescue Companies and a member of the US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board.
“AI is proving its value for travellers who want smarter, faster and more personalised trip planning.”
What travellers actually use the technology for is revealing. At heart, AI is still playing the role of a very fast, very patient assistant. Itinerary planning tops the list at 73 per cent, followed closely by general destination research at 67 per cent. In other words, people are asking the machines to do what travel agents once did best: organise the puzzle.
Flights, restaurant bookings and accommodation searches follow closely behind. The real divide, however, sits between domestic and international usage. Travellers heading overseas use AI more heavily for flight planning, visa information and translation, reflecting the daily frictions of cross-border movement. American travellers, by contrast, turn to AI more often for hotels and restaurants, once the destination is already locked in.
The gender distinction is quieter but consistent. Women tend to use AI across a broader range of planning tasks, especially for itineraries, restaurants and background research. Men are slightly more likely to declare themselves “satisfied”, though both groups report strong results.
When asked to judge usefulness, nearly four in five users rated AI as either very or mostly helpful. Reports of poor performance were rare. For a technology barely out of its infancy in consumer travel, that is an unusually clean verdict.
What comes next may matter more than what has already happened. Ninety-three per cent of respondents said they expect to use AI for their next trip, including 95 per cent of women and 93 per cent of men. That is not curiosity. That is the intent.
“These findings show that travellers who have tried AI overwhelmingly see its benefits,” Richards said.
“As tools become more capable and trusted, AI will likely become a standard part of trip planning worldwide.”
That prediction sounds less like marketing optimism than simple pattern recognition. Travel has always absorbed useful technology quickly — from paper timetables to online booking engines to mobile boarding passes. AI fits neatly into that lineage. It strips hours from planning, reduces uncertainty, and quietly gives travellers back the most valuable commodity in modern life: time.
What is striking is not that AI is arriving in travel, but who is bringing it in first. Women and international travellers are not experimenting for novelty’s sake. They are adopting because the technology reduces friction in complex journeys, unfamiliar languages, shifting entry rules, and long-haul logistics.
The broader travelling public will follow, as it always does, once the rough edges fade. By then, today’s early adopters will look less like pioneers and more like the first wave of a permanent change in how trips are planned.
There is no dramatic disruption here. No revolution announced with fanfare. Just a quiet shift in behaviour, one prompt at a time.
by Michelle Warner – (c) 2025
Read Time: 3 minutes.
About the Writer
Michelle Warner is a storyteller with jet fuel in her veins — the sort of woman who could turn a long-haul delay into a lesson in patience and prose. She began her career in media publications, learning the craft of sharp sentences and honest storytelling, before trading deadlines for departures as a flight attendant with several major airlines. Years spent at thirty thousand feet gave her a keen eye for human nature and a deep affection for the grace and grit of travellers everywhere.
Now happily grounded, Michelle has returned to her first love, writing, with the same composure she once brought to a turbulent cabin. Her work combines an editor’s precision with a traveller’s curiosity, weaving vivid scenes and subtle humour into stories that honour the golden age of travel writing. Every line is a small act of civility, polished, poised, and unmistakably human.
