According to Odessia founder Francis Davidson, OpenAI has acquired an AI travel agency called Odessia. In a post announcing the deal, Davidson said he now works at OpenAI and supports the AI Institute on the future of travel.
Terms of the agreement have not been disclosed, but it appears to be an acquisition. Davidson’s presentation focused primarily on how he led a team of AI agents to build the AI travel agent Odessia. One-year-old Odesia launched its AI travel agency about five months ago after raising $6 million in a pre-seed round led by Sequoia. Davidson said the tool, which helped early adopters plan millions of dollars worth of trips, has now been shut down.
An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the hire to TechCrunch. “We are thrilled to welcome Francis to OpenAI. Francis is a founder with a proven track record of building multiple businesses to help people travel, and we are excited that he has chosen to build with us.”
However, AI Lab has not announced any new travel-specific products or plans. However, companies such as Bookings.com, Expedia, and KAYAK are counted as customers or partners. Travel is also one of the main areas where people are using personal AI assistants to help. And when OpenAI launched its ChatGPT agent in July 2025, it mentioned travel as one of its potential uses.
An OpenAI spokesperson would not say more about the company’s plans for travel-related products, other than to say that travel is one of the areas frequently asked by chatbot users. “1.2 billion people rely on ChatGPT every week for help with everyday tasks, from understanding their health to planning what’s for dinner, budgeting, and even planning a trip. We see a real opportunity to make these experiences even more useful,” a spokesperson said.
The Odessia acquisition is interesting for another reason. Davidson is well known in the travel industry since he founded a travel startup called Sonder in 2014 while a college student. It was kind of like Airbnb, but focused on short-term rentals of luxury apartments in major cities around the world. The pandemic hit the company hard, and as it climbed out of its rut, it went public via a SPAC, but was unable to raise the amount of capital it needed, Davidson later said in a post announcing his resignation as CEO in June 2025.
When a key partnership with Marriott fell apart, the company went bankrupt and ceased operations. The bankruptcy trustee sold Sonder’s name, trademarks, and website domain to TravelAI in 2026, and the website operates as a curated guide to the type of travel rental properties Sonder was once known for. Before his downfall, Davidson built Sonder into a unicorn with $143 million in revenue. While Mr. Sonder ultimately wasn’t a success story, Mr. Davidson is the kind of battle-scarred founder that Silicon Valley often admires.
So we’ll have to wait and see what OpenAI plans for travel now that he’s joined the company.
Note: This article has been updated with comments from OpenAI.
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