This article analyses how AI agents can reshape travel planning. Currently, planning involves sequential steps, from defining 'what' and 'how' to researching venues. AI agents enable 'why-first' planning, where travellers express their purpose (e.g., exploring a city) and agents suggest optimal trips. This shift empowers collaborative intelligence, with agents handling information synthesis while travellers focus on preferences. Agents enable parallel job execution, collapsing planning timelines. Group dynamics could invert, with larger groups becoming easier to coordinate due to enhanced preference data. Risk tolerance becomes programmable, allowing conservative travellers to explore more with guaranteed fallback options. Venue discovery becomes predictive, with agents suggesting trips based on opportunities. Venues will need to optimise for machine readability, prioritising clear communication over human persuasion. Travel planning will evolve from search to outcome specification, from individual venue selection to orchestrated experiences, and from planning to preference management within an AI Profile. This necessitates venues adapting to agent communication, coordinating multiple venue bookings, and verifying booking intent. These shifts signal a fundamental change in how travel jobs are accomplished, requiring venues to become Agent-Ready.
