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OpenAI buys Odessia, an AI travel agency, and hires its founder, Francis Davidson
IA en un minuto newsroom · Editor: Jon Elgezabal
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OpenAI is taking over Odessia, a travel agency that works with artificial intelligence and can close bookings on its own thanks to its IATA license. Francis Davidson, Odessia's founder and previously a cofounder of Sonder, moves to OpenAI as part of the deal. OpenAI has not revealed the price or explained how it will use the service.
OpenAI has bought Odessia, a travel agency that runs on artificial intelligence. The deal was first reported by The Information and picked up by Reuters on Tuesday, November 10.
With the purchase, OpenAI is also bringing in Odessia's founder, Francis Davidson, according to DiarioBitcoin. Davidson cofounded Sonder, a short-stay rental and hotel services company that reached $600 million in revenue and, in November 2025, filed to enter administration, a formal insolvency process.
What sets Odessia apart from an assistant that only suggests destinations is its license from IATA, the International Air Transport Association, which lets it handle bookings itself, from flights to accommodation and experiences. In its initial phase, during the summer of 2026, it moved more than $60 million in bookings for tens of thousands of users; that figure is the value of the trips sold, not what the company took in. Around the middle of the year it had raised $6 million in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital, and on October 14 it relaunched to the public.
The financial terms of the agreement have not been made public, and neither has what OpenAI plans to do with the service: whether it will keep running separately or end up inside ChatGPT.
Why it matters · analysis and opinion
The purchase fits a race that goes beyond conversation: assistants already recommend trips, but closing a booking requires licenses, deals with suppliers and answering to the customer when something goes wrong. Odessia brings exactly that regulated part, which cannot be built in a few weeks, and a founder who knows the hotel business, although the end of Sonder is also a reminder of how hard it is to sustain. For agencies and comparison sites the signal is clear: the assistant wants to own the last step, the booking. What remains to be seen is whether OpenAI will build it into ChatGPT, with which partners and in which countries, and none of that has been announced.
Source: DiarioBitcoin · Written with the help of AI: how we make the news
