An advisor needs a recommendation of three to five Virtuoso hotels that are within walking distance of the Eiffel Tower, have confirmed tower-view rooms, provide enhanced Virtuoso amenities and have at least one Michelin-starred restaurant.

Or, they're looking for on-sites that provide immediate upfront cost breakdowns, have Spanish-speaking guides and specialise in family experiences.

Or, an agency owner needs to identify Virtuoso training opportunities for their advisors based on education that's already been completed, sales and areas of specialisation.

Now, they'll be able to turn to Virtuoso's new intelligence capability to get those answers and many more.

Virtuoso has been developing the AI-powered intelligence technology for the past seven months. Those were some examples of its abilities that CEO Matthew Upchurch shared on stage during Virtuoso Travel Week here.

The technology will also assist Virtuoso partners. For instance, they could ask, "Review active Virtuoso promotions in Thailand, and propose a promotion structure that stands out rather than duplicates what exists."

Both advisors and partners could ask the tool to give the case for the opportunity behind sustainable travel. It would share knowledge from both their peers experienced in sustainable travel as well as Virtuoso's global stewardship team.

"Ultimately, all of this is about creating a better starting point for everybody to apply their own wisdom, and as the network uses this capability, the smarter it gets, the faster we identify gaps and can build what matters most to our Virtuosos," Upchurch said.

'Exciting technological development'

The intelligence tool was designed to be used alongside platforms that Virtuoso and its agencies are already using, not replace them, the CEO said. 

Gilad Berenstein, founder of tech investment fund Brook Bay Capital and a member of Virtuoso's board, called it "by far the most exciting technological development Virtuoso has done since the beginning of the great commoditisation about four years ago."

Speaking during a press conference, Berenstein stressed that this is only the beginning of the tool, and much more work is to come.

"But ultimately," he said, "our industry is made up of disorganised data across many systems, many partners, many agencies. And one of the things that Matthew Upchurch says that I love is, 'In our industry, none of us can do anything alone.' We are dependent on one another to create the magic for our clients that we all hope to create. So really, the core of it is, how do we bring all the wisdom of the network into one place?"

One of the most compelling current use cases of the capability is using it to research peers and suppliers who operate in destinations where advisors haven't personally been or sent clients to. It's an early use case, but a useful one.

"We'll come up with significant, more complicated and interesting use cases," he said. "But that's it – how do we have all the important information in one place so that we can supercharge the advisors." 

An intelligence tool, not a product

Helen McCabe-Young, Virtuoso's senior VP of product, said in a press conference that the intelligence tool intentionally does not have a name, as it's not a product, but a technology upon which future products can be built. It does, however, enable users to query it today.

She called it "foundational."

"It's not a product," McCabe-Young said. "It's not an end game. It is something that is truly a capability we will continue to build on."

Like Upchurch, McCabe-Young emphasiSed that it's meant to be additive, not replace tools that Virtuoso members and partners are using and creating on their own.

Very important to the project has been establishing a foundation of trust, as Virtuoso holds 40 years of data.

"Governance around that is really critical," she said.

From an engineering standpoint, that has been a main focus, said Paul Kearney, the company's senior vice president of technology. His team has worked to ensure the capability has a tight layer of security built around it.

Virtuoso holds ISO 27001 certification, Kearney said, an international standard for information security management; the consortium will continue to go through annual recertifications that include the new intelligence tool.

McCabe-Young said while some of Virtuoso's data is available to the technology right now, not all of it is.

"People will not see data they're not supposed to see, and that's an imperative," she said.

Intersection of stewardship and AI

During Virtuoso Travel Week, the consortium discussed its initiative to start using the word "stewardship" instead of "sustainability."

Considering Virtuoso's work on stewardship will be accessible by the technology, and the environmental and societal concerns around the ever-growing use of AI, conversations about the intelligence tool have been ongoing, said Jessica Hall Upchurch, Virtuoso vice chair and head of global stewardship.

"Obviously, none of us in the room have any control over Anthropic of SpaceXAI — Creators of Grok, the AI Chatbot , but what we can do as the users of it is ask those intentional questions, ask the right things so that we know how we're using it, we are utilising less resources," Hall Upchurch said on a panel. "We are really thinking about those things in our usage of it, as well."

Early access to the capability is being rolled out in waves to those who request it at Virtuoso Travel Week. That will enable the consortium to gather feedback and learn more, McCabe-Young said. It is accessed via My Virtuoso.

At the moment, the technology comes at no cost to members and partners.

"The future of its value and the future of how that will unfold remain to be seen," she said.

Future use cases also remain to be seen, Upchurch said, but it will enable "an infinite number of solutions beyond the kind of prompting that I've addressed today, like workflows, integrations, dashboards and agentic solutions.

"The vision," he added, "is a capability that understands Virtuoso specifically, drawing from the broader world and the wisdom that we've accumulated over the past 40 years."

Related: Virtuoso rides nearly 21% sales wave as luxury travel keeps rolling

Source: Travel Weekly