Google Brings Trip-Planning Features to Search’s AI Mode
Google has added flight price tracking, conversational hotel booking and miles-and-points pricing to AI Mode, the conversational surface inside Search. Announced on 27 August 2026, the three features complete a nine-month build that started with the Canvas itinerary panel in November 2025 and turns AI Mode from a place where you research a trip into a place where you arrange one. The rollout is far more uneven than the headline suggests: price tracking reaches more than 180 countries and the points display is global, but hotel booking is live in a single country, in English, with ten named partners including Booking.com, Expedia, Marriott and Hilton. This breakdown covers exactly what shipped, where each feature actually works, what Google’s own usage data says about why travel was the obvious target, and what the shift does to the travel websites that used to be the destination.