India, May 13 -- Searching for flights by typing destinations and comparing fares across tabs may no longer be the default way people plan trips online. Online travel platform, ixigo, is now pushing a different approach - one where users can simply talk to an AI assistant and let it handle large parts of the journey planning process.

At its tech event, ixigo NEXT, the company introduced a rebuilt version of its app that has been developed around artificial intelligence from the start. Instead of adding AI features later, ixigo says it redesigned the entire app experience to work around conversations, voice prompts and automated travel assistance.

At the centre of this new strategy is TARA, a multimodal AI assistant that can interact wit...