Expedia Group has acquired Layla, a startup specializing in AI-powered travel planning. The transaction amount was not disclosed. With this acquisition, announced on July 31, 2026, the group gains conversational technology, a team of travel specialists, and a tool already designed to connect inspiration, itineraries, and bookings.
The acquisition comes as Expedia has been developing artificial intelligence-based features for several years. With Layla, the group adds to its existing infrastructure a company specifically created for searching and planning trips using natural language.
Summary
Expedia acquires Layla to accelerate its travel AI strategy
According to the specialized press, PhocusWire confirmed on July 31, 2026, Expedia Group's acquisition of Layla. The financial terms of the transaction remain confidential.
Expedia indicates that it wants to combine the planning and personalization capabilities developed by Layla with its tourism offering, technology, and booking infrastructure.
However, it is too early to say how Layla will be integrated into the group's various brands, including Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo. No detailed timeline for deploying its technologies across these platforms was published at the time of the announcement.
Layla has only existed since 2023
Layla was launched in 2023 by Saad Saeed and Jeremy Jauncey. Saeed had previously co-founded the delivery service Flink, while Jauncey is the founder of Beautiful Destinations.
From its launch, the Berlin-based company offered a conversational interface for searching destinations and planning trips. Layla could present inspirational content, accommodation options, and flight information.
TechCrunch reported in November 2023 that Layla relied in particular on partnerships with Booking.com for hotels and Skyscanner for flights.
A €3 million fundraising round prior to the acquisition by Expedia
Layla had raised 3 million euros during its seed round announced in November 2023.
The funding was led by firstminute capital and M13. Other investors included Andy Phillipps, co-founder of Booking.com, Barry Smith, co-founder of Skyscanner, and Paris Hilton.
This funding round took place when Layla was just beginning to market its travel assistant. Less than three years later, the company has joined one of the world's leading online travel distribution groups.
Layla had already bought Roam Around
This wasn't the startup's first acquisition. In February 2024, Layla acquired Roam Around, a service that uses artificial intelligence to generate travel itineraries.
The amount of this acquisition was also not disclosed.
At that time, TechCrunch reported that Roam Around had generated approximately 10 million routes and attracted some 500,000 monthly visitors. The five-person Roam Around team was scheduled to join Layla.
This acquisition allowed Layla to strengthen a function that had become central to its product: transforming a request formulated in natural language into a proposed itinerary that can be used by the traveler.
Expedia was already working on conversational travel
The acquisition of Layla is not Expedia's first investment in conversational interfaces.
In November 2025, Expedia unveiled an application integrated with ChatGPT. PhocusWire reported at the time that users could search for destinations, compare flight and hotel options with real-time prices, and view maps from Expedia.
The acquisition of Layla is therefore part of an existing strategy. The group seeks to bring the tools used to formulate a travel intention closer to its own search and booking capabilities.
What the Layla buyout actually changes
At this stage, Expedia has not announced the removal of its traditional search engines, nor the replacement of its booking processes with a fully conversational interface.
The deal confirms, however, that Expedia considers AI-assisted planning to be a sufficiently important technology to justify the acquisition of a specialist company.
For tourism professionals, the most concrete fact lies elsewhere: a major distributor now has, internally, technology designed to interpret requests formulated in the form of a conversation and transform them into travel recommendations.
The exact consequences for hotels, airlines, destinations, and other suppliers will depend on how Expedia integrates Layla into its products. No specific changes to listing, offer ranking, or distribution rules have been announced to date.
An acquisition to watch closely
The acquisition of Layla brings together two complementary assets: a young company specializing in conversational planning and a group with a vast catalog of tourism products and several global booking platforms.
The amount of the transaction, Layla's future organization, and the timeline for integrating its technologies remain unknown.
One thing, however, is confirmed: Expedia is no longer content with simply testing artificial intelligence in its interfaces. The group has now acquired a company entirely built around this new way of experiencing travel.
Sources
- https://www.phocuswire.com/news/technology/expedia-group-acquires-ai-travel-planning-app-layla
- https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/29/layla-taps-into-ai-and-creator-content-to-build-a-travel-recommendation-app/
- https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/12/travel-startup-layla-acquires-flyr-backed-ai-itinerary-building-bot/
- https://expediagroup.com/
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