An Experiment in AI-Powered Creative

by Dasha Gastol, Senior Director of Paid Media @ Propellic

This month, our team launched an experiment we’re genuinely excited about: our first fully AI-generated video.

The video was produced using AI as a creative execution layer. We’re treating it as exactly what it is: a test and an early signal of what becomes possible as these tools continue to evolve.

This isn’t about replacing creative direction. Creative vision, taste, and strategic judgment remain fundamentally human. What is changing is the set of tools available to bring that vision to life.

For travel brands, this matters because AI meaningfully lowers the barrier to compelling visual content. Historically, high-quality video demanded large budgets, long timelines, and complex production.

AI begins to shift that equation, enabling richer storytelling and performance-driven creative with greater speed and flexibility.

That’s the opportunity we’re exploring. Faster learning cycles, more creative testing, and broader access to high-impact visuals, guided by human insight and brand stewardship.

‍

‍Watch Propellic's AI-generated Video

‍

‍

Key Takeaways for Travel Businesses in 2025 — and What’s Coming in 2026

‍

by Emily Souydalays, Associate SEO Director, in collaboration with Jeff Riddall, Senior SEO Manager, and Paul Teddy, Senior Director of Operations.

2025 made one thing unmistakably clear: travel brands treating SEO and AI Visibility as separate strategies are already falling behind. AI surfaces like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, and model-powered assistants inside OTA and airline ecosystems shape the first impression travelers get of your brand.

Traditional SEO signals still matter, but they’re no longer the only path to discovery.

Here’s what 2025 taught us, and how it sets the stage for 2026:

1. AI Surfaces Became the New Top of Funnel

• The Evolution of the Google SERP: The dreaded, monumental shift from Google’s traditional "ten blue links" to AI-generated answers (AI Overviews/SGE) as the primary search result.
  
  
• Zero-click searches surged to ~60% in 2025, contributing to ~15–25% organic traffic declines for many travel sites as AI Overviews, AI Mode and answer-layer results replaced traditional clicks - making AI-surface visibility important for maintaining demand.
  
  • By the end of 2025, Propellic is frequently seeing >55% of keywords travel brands rank for on the first page of Google triggering an AI Overview, according to ahrefs.com data. Across our travel clients, this is up 450% from just March of this year.
    
    
  • Informational queries were hit hardest by zero-click searches with top funnel content seeing 50-80% organic traffic declines across many travel brands.
    
    
• Owner-Direct Bookings Won in AI Mode: Propellic's “From Search to Purchase - AI Impact on Travel Booking” Study found that when users booked through AI-assisted searches, over 50% went directly to property or activity owner sites - while OTAs captured less than 10% of bookings. For suppliers, AI visibility isn't just about traffic; it's a direct revenue channel.
  
  
• E-E-A-T is the New Currency: Google and AI engines prioritized "Experience" above most factors. Reviews, user-generated content (UGC), and personal accounts from travelers became stronger signals for authority. Google and AI engines now prioritize content that proves you were actually there. Shift "The best things to do in Rome" to "Our team’s favorite hidden corners in Rome."
  
  • While not new in 2025, the importance has continued to rise and winning tactics like original photography; bylines with named authors with bios; and context-rich reviews or UGC help travel brands succeed in the new algorithm and LLMs alike.
    
    
  • Winning brands are those with strong entity foundations, clean structured data, and content aligned with AI reasoning patterns.
    
    
• If your content doesn’t appear in the answer layer, your organic funnel is artificially capped.
  
  

2026 OUTLOOK:

Expect more personalized AI itineraries, trip curation layers inside Meta/TikTok, and model-level partnerships between major OTAs, Google and LLMs.

‍

2. Content Quality Is Now Defined by Structure, Not Length

• AI Overviews reward pages that are modular, scannable, and fact-codified.
  
  
• Sites standardizing internal schemas (FAQs, Product, TouristTrip, Location, How-To, SOP-style formatting) saw the biggest gains overall.
  
  
• Use strict H1 to H2 to H3 etc. structures. LLM bots extract and synthesize for quick answers; if your pricing or "what's included" is buried in a long paragraph, the AI will skip you for a competitor with a clear bulleted list.

2026 OUTLOOK:

Google and LLMs are expected to lean even harder into structured entities, schema and multi-format content (text + images + data tables + ordered lists). Static long-form content will continue to decay as LLM responses dominate informational queries.

‍

3. Local & Experience-Based Travel Searches Shifted Hard Toward “Contextual Intent”

• Passion-Driven SEO: We saw a shift toward "Niche Communities." Generic keywords like "best hotels in Tokyo" remain valuable, however hyper-specific clusters like "Tokyo hotels with vinyl listening rooms" or "solo-parent wellness retreats in Bali” dramatically grew in value.
  
  • Propellic has seen success with including content specifically targeting personas and niche audiences in both AI Overviews and other AI surfaces.
    
    
• Not “Temecula wine tours” but “best way to spend a day wine tasting in Temecula.”
  
  
• Not “Galápagos cruise” but “Which Galápagos itinerary fits adventure travelers?”
  
  
• Optimized Google Business Profiles where businesses truly engage with local customers are more important and impactful than ever.
  
  • In our first-of-its-kind behavioral study of Google AI Mode use for travel, our data showed AI Mode sessions included a click to a Google Business Profile 46% of the time. When profiles provide the right photos and details to nab the searcher’s attention, interacting with GBP also ends up being their last interaction!

2026 OUTLOOK:

Generative search will push brands to build topic clusters around needs, preferences, constraints, and personas, not just keywords.

‍

4. Technical Foundations Became a Revenue Multiplier

• Travel brands with clean architectures, lightweight javascript, clear booking/pass-through markup, and AI-fetchable product data outperformed competitors.
  
  
• Booking engines exposing product details and booking capabilities via API (Ventrata, Fareharbor, Bokun, Checkfront API) are becoming a competitive differentiator. If an AI agent can't verify your real-time availability, it can't recommend you as a final booking option.
  
  
• Headless CMSs like Contentful, paired with javascript frameworks such as React or Next.js, gained significant traction among development teams in 2025. However, javascript-heavy implementations have put brands at a disadvantage in LLM discovery if critical content isn’t server-side rendered.

2026 OUTLOOK:

Expect AI-crawlable product data and AI-integrated booking experiences to become table stakes. Sites relying solely on javascript-rendered pricing/availability will lose visibility in AI search and those which aren’t able to deliver a frictionless booking experience will fall behind. In 2026, the industry will increasingly move toward Agentic AI.

Travelers won't just ask an AI where to go; they will tell it to "Book the best flight and eco-certified hotel within my budget."

‍

5. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) Became the Missing Layer in Most SEO Programs

• GEO primarily focuses on making brands visible to- and citable by- LLMs, optimizing for entity recognition and semantic relationships that help define how the brand is understood.
  
  
• Brands that invested early in entity modeling, persona-level intent coverage, and structured, answer-ready content became disproportionately visible in AI Overviews and other AI surfaces.
  
  
• GEO shifted from “experimental” to “ROI-producing,” especially in tours, activities, and multi-day operators, where clear products, attributes, and availability allow LLMs to confidently compare and make recommendations.
  
  

2026 OUTLOOK:

GEO will formalize as a standard component of organic research and strategy, much like technical SEO foundations did over a decade ago. Measurement will shift further from rankings and traffic toward AI visibility, citation frequency, and downstream booking impact.

‍

2026 Event Considerations

For the first time, global events such as the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the Winter Olympics in Italy will make event-based GEO a substantial revenue driver for many travel brands.

"Overflow cities" destinations in and near host cities optimizing for transit, stays and experiences will have significant opportunities to cash in.

The Bottom Line

Travel brands that win in 2026 will be the ones building for visibility across all discovery engines, not just Google. AI is no longer a channel - it is the interface between travelers and information.

Businesses  adapting their content, technical infrastructure, and entity signals now will be the ones travelers actually see next year.

‍

‍

Conclusions on Key 2025 Trends

‍

by Dasha Gastol, Senior Director of Paid Media @ Propellic

‍

Google Consolidated Power

Despite early predictions, AI did not erode Google’s dominance. Google integrated AI directly into Search, YouTube, and Ads, reinforcing its role as the primary demand-capture platform. At the same time, CPCs continued to rise across paid search, tightening efficiency thresholds and raising the bar for performance discipline.

Channel Convergence

The boundaries between channels continued to dissolve, reshaping how travelers planned their journeys. Search and social increasingly blurred, with younger audiences turning to platforms like TikTok for discovery, while video influenced decisions earlier in the funnel. In response, leading brands built connected campaigns across search, social, CTV, and programmatic, turning integration into a clear competitive advantage.

Creative Became the Targeting Layer

With third-party cookies continuing to fade, contextual targeting reasserted itself, now driven by AI rather than identifiers. Platforms increasingly use creative signals, visuals, tone, pacing, narrative, to determine audience delivery.

Search Became a Conversation

Search behavior grew more conversational in 2025, shaped by AI Overviews and assistant-style interfaces. Paid media followed, with platforms prioritizing landing-page themes and intent clusters over exact keyword matching.

‍

Predictions for 2026

AI-Native Advertising will Finally Materialize

As consumer attention continues to shift toward AI assistants, advertising will follow. Sponsored placements embedded directly within AI responses (e.g., product or destination recommendations inside ChatGPT or Gemini outputs) will begin to scale.

Search will Evolve From Keywords to Intent Signals

Paid search will continue shifting away from keyword dependence toward intent signals derived from conversational behavior and AI-driven discovery surfaces. Budgets will increasingly follow outcomes influenced by assistants, not just queries.

Attribution Will Become a Competitive Advantage

Cross-channel measurement will mature from reporting exercise to strategic asset. Brands that can connect search, social, video, CTV, and offline data into a single performance narrative will outperform those relying on channel-level metrics.

Video and CTV Become Core Performance Channels

Video, particularly on connected screens, will move from upper-funnel support to a primary performance driver. Improvements in targeting, metadata, and measurement will accelerate budget reallocation toward video first channels.

‍

‍

Practical Steps to Win at AI-Driven Search

The question isn't if AI will change travel marketing, but how you should respond.

Brennen Bliss recently joined WeTravel Academy to break down exactly how to get found in AI search and win direct bookings in 2026.

In this session, he moves past the hype and offers a tactical playbook for travel brands. He explains how AI now curates the options travelers see—and shares the specific adjustments you need to make to your digital strategy to drive bookings in this new landscape.

If you are relying solely on traditional SEO, you might be invisible to tomorrow's traveler.

Watch the recording here to learn:

• How AI is changing the discovery phase of the traveler's journey.
• Why "ranking" is being replaced by "answering."
• Practical steps you can take today to ensure your brand stays visible and bookable.

‍