Large Language Models have already proven highly adept at generating feasible travel itineraries. With its travel search function, Perplexity is setting the foundations for an agentic travel assistant that can book and manage trips in real time. Robbie Hodges reports

Perplexity has long been vying to be a leader in the market of generative search engines, competing with LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude and Grok to be the most intuitive and convenient method of finding solutions. 

In fact, in 2024, it claimed its authority in this space by positioning itself as an “answer engine” – posing a bold challenge to the future of Search. That same year, it started experimenting with “Sponsored Questions”, an ad-based approach to monetisation not yet attempted by the likes of OpenAI. 

Through Sponsored Questions, companies can bid to have their brand mentioned in one of the prompt suggestions that appears beneath Perplexity’s prompt text box. The answer to the question is auto-generated by Perplexity before being edited and signed off by the brand, meaning that every user who clicks on the question sees the same response. 

In 2025 the company is continuing to innovate new commercial approaches. From March 2025 onwards, when users land on the platform, they have three options; to search generally, or for specific finance, shopping and travel solutions. 

When users select travel, they are immediately presented with “Trending Destinations” as image cards, along with “Inspiration” cards which comprise articles that have been “curated by perplexitytravel”. While Globetrender was unable to find out exactly how these posts were created, we assume the articles are auto-generated and then edited by humans before being published – a similar process to each of the Sponsored Questions. 

Inspiration might include prompts such as, “Best hiking trails in Slovenia” or “Forest hotels in Sweden for Solitude”, with the articles including the web addresses of specific properties or booking platforms, but not providing directly bookable links. 

Rather than read the Inspiration or Trending Destination articles, users can also type in specific prompts to receive travel suggestions or itineraries. When asked for hotel recommendations, Perplexity draws upon various trusted sources to compile short hotel review summaries, along with the website, directions and phone number for each property. 

Perplexity’s focus on travel signposts a future of agentic AI, whereby itineraries won’t just be generated but can be booked and adapted in real-time based on current travel disruptions.