If you booked a trip by texting Odessia, the first thing to know is that the service has closed and Odessia is still answering questions about existing bookings. OpenAI acquired the company on November 10. Here is what happened, what Odessia was, what to do about a trip you already booked, and what OpenAI has and hasn’t said about travel in ChatGPT.
What happened
On November 10, 2026, Odessia’s founder, Francis Davidson, announced on X: “I’m thrilled to announce that Odessia was acquired by OpenAI, and that I will be joining the team to focus on the future of travel.”
An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the hire to TechCrunch: “We’re thrilled to welcome Francis to OpenAI. Francis is a proven founder who has built multiple businesses to help people travel, and we’re excited he’s chosen to build with us.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Odessia’s homepage now reads: “We started Odessia to reinvent travel. This acquisition marks an exciting next chapter for that mission. As part of this transition, the Odessia service is no longer available.”
What Odessia was
Odessia was an AI travel agent you reached by text. Per Skift, it planned and booked “flights, hotels and itineraries through a single conversation,” and opened to the public on October 14, 2026 as a free concierge. Davidson, who earlier founded the lodging company Sonder, unveiled it in June with a team of eight in San Francisco and funding led by Sequoia Capital.
It was a real travel agent, with the accreditation to match. Skift reports that Odessia’s IATA accreditation gave it access to private hotel rates and to perks such as free breakfast and room upgrades, and that it wrote its own guides to hundreds of thousands of hotels.
People used it. In Davidson’s words: “Over $60M/year of travel was planned by Odessia over the past summer by tens of thousands of early adopters. Using AI to plan and book extraordinary trips is now a reality.” He thanked his team, his investors, and “our numerous partners across the travel industry who took an early bet on a startup pre-launch.”
The team is moving on together, and it is still a loss for the people who had come to plan trips this way.
If you booked a trip through Odessia
Odessia’s homepage says: “For changes or modifications to existing bookings or to access existing travel plans, we’re here to help at support@odessia.com.” Neither Odessia nor OpenAI has said how long that address will be answered, so it is worth acting now:
- Write to support@odessia.com for any change to a booking, or to get a copy of a travel plan you built there.
- Find the confirmation emails for each flight and hotel and keep them somewhere you control. The airline or hotel confirmation number lets you look the reservation up with the airline or hotel directly.
- Put the dates on your own calendar, with the confirmation numbers in the event, so the trip no longer depends on a conversation you can’t open.
What OpenAI has said about travel in ChatGPT
Very little so far. TechCrunch reports that OpenAI “has not announced new travel-specific products or plans.” Its spokesperson said that 1.2 billion people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, trip planning among them, and added: “We see a real opportunity to make these experiences even more useful.” Davidson wrote that there will be “more to share on the shape of the future soon.”
Until now, travel in ChatGPT has run through partners. Skift notes that Booking.com and Expedia were among the first apps inside ChatGPT when OpenAI opened its app platform in October 2025, and reads the deal as “a sign ChatGPT wants to do more in travel than send users to Booking.com and Expedia.”
Three things nobody has announced: whether Odessia’s agent comes back inside ChatGPT, when, and what it would cost. Odessia itself was free. Neither company has said anything about email or calendar.
If you travel for client work
A booking agent plans and books the trip. The rest of a work trip still arrives by email: the confirmation, the schedule change, the client who moves the meeting you were flying in for. If the problem is that email slipping, alfred_ is built for that job, and it does not book travel.
alfred_ is an AI assistant for client-facing teams, and each person on the team gets their own. It reads your email across up to six Gmail, Outlook and IMAP accounts, flags the emails that need your answer, and keeps one list of the replies you owe and the replies you’re waiting on. It manages your calendar, prepares you for meetings from your email, calendar and notes, and sends a morning brief by email or text. You can ask it for things on the web, on iPhone, by text, or from Claude and ChatGPT, and nothing is sent until you approve it. Plans start at $29.99 a month, and teams are on one bill.
