Google's New 'Flight Deals' Feature Uses AI To Help One Particular Kind Of Traveler Find Affordable Airfares

Scoring great travel deals is becoming increasingly complicated, with often conflicting advice, like when to buy international tickets for the lowest price or how to snag last-minute, cheap flights. The process can feel frustrating and overwhelming, especially as flying keeps getting more expensive. However, Google is stepping in to simplify the experience with a new AI-powered tool called Flight Deals, designed to help flexible and curious travelers discover new destinations at affordable prices without the hassle.

Traditionally, booking through Google Flights means opening the home page, manually entering your travel dates as well as your departure city and destination, then tweaking filters for one-way, round-trip, or multi-city journeys. It's a useful tool, but it requires a lot of hand-holding. While you can explore a calendar view to compare prices, finding cheap alternatives often requires clicking through several menus or adjusting parameters on your own.

Flight Deals changes that through its use of its generative AI assistant, Gemini. The tool allows travelers to describe their ideal trips in everyday language, similar to how you might talk to a travel agent. It's especially useful for flexible travelers, offering suggestions for a range of dates and destinations based on real-time data from across the web. The AI-powered tool is focused on flights for now, so you'll have to use other options to plan the rest. Flight Deals is currently in its beta iteration and is available in the U.S., Canada, and India. Google says it plans to expand access and features as it gathers user feedback.

Pull up the Flight Deals page, and describe — like you're texting a friend — when, where, and how you'd like to travel. For example, "two weeks next summer Europe under $5k" yields options to various European cities with flexible dates across the season. You don't even need to input your origin city; if you don't specify, the AI assumes your current location. Type something like, "10 days in Europe next summer from LAX under $4k," and you might see a trip to Krakow, Poland, marked at a price "21% less than typical" — followed by a $700 July trip to Rome, and a $655 flight to Stockholm. Click one of the results, and you'll jump to Google Flights, where you'll see it and other similar options you might prefer.

You can also tell Flight Deals what kind of activities or aesthetics you're into, and it will suggest destinations. Say, "I love animals and want to go somewhere in Africa for 12 days max under $3k any time October to March" and it might return flights to Harare, Zimbabwe for $1,200 with the note, "Wildlife and Epworth balancing rocks," or Nairobi for $900 with the message, "Kenyan capital and safari departure point." Type, "go somewhere unique off the beaten path," and you might get flights to Latvia or Bulgaria.

This isn't the first time AI has entered the travel space. You can ask other generative tools — like ChatGPT — for cheap flights, but you'll likely wade through overwhelming itineraries, vacation packages, or inaccurate info — more than the clean, accurate results of Flight Deals. With its advanced Gemini model, Google is pushing the boundaries of what tech can do — to the ends of the Earth.