ixigo, one of India’s leading travel search marketplace has launched ‘ixibaba’ – an artificial intelligence chatbot. Along with the human-like-persona of a savvy ‘baba’, ixibaba provides quick, quirky answers to all travel planning and booking related queries. ixibaba will help Indian travellers find the best ways to plan their trip by conversing with them on topics across flights, hotels, buses, cabs, places to visit and vacation destinations. Apart from using ixigo’s proprietary meta-search engine to find where the cheapest travel deals are, the chatbot also covers weather, things to do in a city and even find offbeat adventure activities.
Aloke Bajpai, CEO and Co-Founder, ixigo said, “ixibaba is a personal travel assistant that can help you with all your travel queries just like a knowledgeable friend would. With platforms such as Facebook messenger and Whatsapp reaching a critical mass of over a billion users, chat based information and commerce is bound to take off. We believe we are at the forefront of this evolution when it comes to travel!”
Rajnish Kumar, CTO & Co-Founder added, “It took us one year to build ixibaba and it will continue evolving as it learns from real interactions with travellers, since we use artificial intelligence and deep-learning. In tests with over 1000 users, we have seen a nearly 80 per cent accuracy in recognising travel related queries, and we expect this to continue improving.”
