ixigo 回应 AI 智能体冲击：自建智能体层并做第三方智能体供应商
Will AI agents drive customers away from travel platforms and its impact on ixigo
ixigo 在 Q2 FY27 财报中表示，将同时作为第三方 AI 智能体的供应与履约伙伴，并通过基于自研小语言模型的语音优先层 ixigo NEXT 提供自有智能体体验。管理层称用户转向外部智能体时，应用会失去参与度、上下文乃至分发渠道，但认为印度市场对通用智能体更难切入，火车和巴士贡献其超过 70% 的贡献毛利，94% 的交易来自二三四线城市旅客。其 AI 助手 TARA 已解决 94% 的聊天查询并端到端处理 82% 的客服电话，同期技术支出同比增长 46% 至 14.3 千万卢比，调整后 EBITDA 下降 17% 至 23.6 千万卢比。
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Consumer-facing AI agent apps have moved from answering travel questions to completing bookings on behalf of users, and online travel aggregator ixigo plans to profit from that shift rather than lose customers to it. In its Q2 FY27 earnings release, ixigo’s management said every shift in how people book travel — from desktop to mobile and now AI agents — has “created opportunities for companies willing to adapt”. The company is therefore building its own agentic layer
Why this matters: At the Global Fintech Fest 2026, Amazon Pay launched Smart Wallet, which lets AI agents make UPI payments on a user’s behalf with consent, within specified spending limits.
Agentic payments went live first for flight bookings, with ixigo as a launch partner alongside NPCI.
ixigo’s competitors are also increasingly adopting AI. MakeMyTrip’s AI agent Myra now enables conversational bookings. Expedia and Booking.com were the first travel brands inside ChatGPT. Expedia has also partnered with Perplexity’s Comet browser.
What risks does AI pose for online travel aggregators?
ixigo did not downplay the AI threat. The management warned that every time a user leaves an app to ask an external AI agent for help, “that app risks losing engagement, context and eventually distribution”.
However, ixigo argues that India is harder terrain for general-purpose agents. Online bookings accounted for about 42.5% of India’s total travel gross booking value in FY26. Bus supply spans 7,000-plus private operators and 25-plus state transport corporations.
Trains are governed via a regulatory framework. Trains and buses account for over 70% of ixigo’s contribution margin. In comparison, 94% of its transactions involve travellers from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, for whom post-booking service, including refunds, waitlist prediction and disruption handling, is where trust is won.
“An agent that only issues a ticket does not own any of that,” management said.
What is ixigo’s strategy to navigate the AI shift?
ixigo plans to operate on both sides of the shift — as a supply and fulfilment partner inside third-party agents, while offering its own agentic experience via ixigo NEXT, a voice-first layer built on small language models developed in-house.
TARA, its AI assistant, already resolves 94% of chat queries and handles 82% of customer calls end-to-end.
With models commoditising, management said the advantage lies in “proprietary context, workflows, memory, prediction and closing the loop between intelligence and execution”. Over time, “the strongest moat will be organisational adaptability.”
The caveats
AI agents could initially direct bookings towards platforms that are “most cited and easiest to transact with” — potentially favouring larger brands.
The economics of agent-driven bookings remain unproven. AI also requires investment. ixigo’s technology spend rose 46% year-on-year to Rs 14.3 crore in Q2 FY27, while adjusted EBITDA fell 17% to Rs 23.6 crore. Management warned that benefits will “build over time rather than appear in any single quarter.”
Also read:
ixigo swings to Rs 63 crore profit in Q2 on Freshbus stake sale
ixigo bets on voice payments, but RBI rules still require human authentication
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