Booking Holdings leverages AI to cut service costs and boost bookings

Based on · First reported 2 Oct 2026

Booking Holdings' chief financial officer Ewout Steenbergen said AI hyperscalers are still guessing their return on investment, and the company is learning from an internal "AI coach" while redesigning its processes from scratch.
The AI overhaul has coincided with a slight decline in customer‑service costs, a rise in customer‑satisfaction scores, and bookings increasing at a high‑single‑digit rate; its 9,000 engineers are delivering 30% more code into production, the firm spends $8‑9 billion annually on paid search, social and metasearch channels, and about 1% of total room nights now come from large‑language‑model referrals.