News
3 min read
On 27 August 2026, Google announced new travel features for the AI mode in its search engine. Through that mode, users can book hotels and receive notifications when flight prices change. Both features are currently unavailable to European users.
The hotel booking feature currently works exclusively in the United States and only in English. Flight price tracking is active in more than 180 countries and territories, but the European Economic Area is explicitly excluded. A third feature, which allows users to view travel costs in frequent flyer points or miles, is available worldwide in supported regions, but here too an exception applies for EEA users.
The reason for the European restriction lies with European competition rules, in particular the Digital Markets Act, which imposes strict requirements on large platform companies such as Google.
Through the AI mode in Google Search, users in the US can directly reserve a hotel room without leaving the search engine. Google has partnered with a range of major booking platforms and hotel chains for this purpose, including Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Hilton, Marriott International, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Priceline, Trip.com, Choice Hotels International and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.
Flight price tracking works differently: users set a route and then receive email updates whenever the price changes. This is not a new feature in itself, but the integration into the AI mode makes it part of a broader conversational interface within which a user can ask questions and book directly.
The points and miles feature displays the cost of flights and hotels in loyalty programme currency. Google currently supports Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, American Airlines, Choice Hotels International, Hilton and Wyndham in this regard. Accor, Flying Blue, Hyatt, LATAM Airlines and Lufthansa Group will be added soon, according to Google.
The Digital Markets Act, the European law that subjects large online platforms to additional obligations, plays a central role in Google's decision not to offer the features in the EEA. The DMA is designed to prevent so-called gatekeepers, including Google as a provider of a general search engine, from using their market position to disadvantage competitors.
On 16 July 2026, the European Commission issued two sets of binding specification measures to Google, targeting the interoperability of AI services and search features on Android devices. Google must implement changes to Search by January 2027 and changes to Android by July 2027.
When a search engine directly books hotels or tracks flights via its own or affiliated services, this raises the question of whether competing providers receive equal opportunities. Google itself, through senior competition counsel Clare Kelly, has stated that it is concerned further regulation may affect user privacy, security and innovation, but the company has not provided specific technical reasons for the EU exclusion.
In addition to the DMA, the EU AI Act is also relevant. That law, in force since 1 August 2024, imposes obligations on AI systems based on their risk profile. Google signed the European AI Code of Practice in August 2025, but expressed concern at the time that the law could slow the rollout of AI in Europe.
The distinction between what Google does and does not offer in Europe is relevant to the broader picture. Since March 2025, Google has been rolling out AI Overviews, the feature that automatically displays a summary above search results, gradually across the EEA. This is happening in countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Belgium, Ireland and Switzerland.
However, that rollout covers only the informational summaries, not the transactional features such as hotel booking or price tracking. The distinction indicates that Google is, for the time being, avoiding transactions in which it acts as an intermediary in the European market. That is precisely the type of integration the DMA monitors.
The generative AI functionality in Google Search was already expanded to more than 120 countries in November 2023, but the travel and booking features have since remained regionally restricted.
For European founders, investors and policymakers, this pattern illustrates a recurring tension: strict European platform regulation protects the competitive position of local players such as Booking.com, but at the same time means European consumers receive new functionality from major technology companies later or in a more limited form. How that trade-off plays out once the DMA specifications for Google come fully into force in 2027 will partly determine the extent to which AI-driven search experiences also become transactional in Europe.
This article draws in part on the following sources.
AI agents linked to OpenAI exploited a 25-year-old German programming wiki as a communication channel from May to early July 2026, making more than 15,000 edits. OpenAI was aware of the incident weeks before it became public, but did not disclose it itself.
DeepSeek intends to deploy 160,000 Huawei Ascend 950DT chips in a data centre in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, dedicated exclusively to inference. Production constraints at Huawei make full delivery before end-2027 or later unlikely.
HumanX Amsterdam opens on 22 September at the RAI with around 200 speakers, five tracks and three days, featuring founders from Legora, Lovable and Celonis alongside enterprise buyers from Diageo, ING and KLM.
