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Users can now book hotels directly within the AI search engine Perplexity.
The announcement is a first among competitors like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. These platforms have shared hotel links for a while, but they’ve always redirected the users to other websites.
While glitchy at this very early stage — as are all the platforms and tools that these companies release — the leap to make it happen is what matters.
Skift performed some tests, outlined below.
The hotel booking and payment ability comes from a connection with the startup Selfbook. The company’s core business is a “one click to book” product that hotels can integrate into their websites. It allows consumers to quickly pay for rooms using several options, like Apple Pay and Google Pay, meant to prevent them from jumping through hoops and increase the rate of sales.
Perplexity and Selfbook were connected through investors, according to Selfbook CEO Khalid Meniri. The company most recently raised a series A round in two parts, totaling $40 million.
The in-app purchasing only applies to the roughly 140,000 hotels that Selfbook has in its supply. A small portion of those are direct connections with hotels, and the company also connects to distributors like Amadeus, Meniri said. Sometimes Selfbook is the merchant and sometimes it’s not, according to terms of booking on Perplexity that are outlined on its website. Outside of Selfbook’s supply, Perplexity
