Sabre and Google Develop Industry-First AI Technology for Travel

Press Releases

Oct 22, 2020

SOUTHLAKE, Texas, Oct. 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR), the leading software and technology company that powers the global travel industry, today announced that Sabre and Google are developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven technology platform that is an industry first in travel. The technology, known as Sabre Travel AI™, is infused with Google’s state-of-the-art AI technology and advanced machine-learning capabilities that will help customers to deliver highly relevant and personalized content more quickly, deliver personalized content that better meets the demands of today’s traveler, and create expanded revenue and margin growth opportunities. The Company is integrating Sabre Travel AI into certain products in its existing portfolio, with plans to bring those to market in early 2021.

“Sabre Travel AI is a game-changer. We are proud to be working with Google to build technologies that will seek to re-define the way travel companies do business, and turn the insights derived from analyses into repeatable, scalable operations. The development of Sabre Travel AI marks a milestone in our technology transformation and a significant step toward achieving our 2025 vision of personalized retailing,” said Sundar Narasimhan, president of Sabre Labs. “With the creation of Sabre Travel AI, we are rebuilding our platform on cloud-native, data-driven technology that can be integrated into the existing and future products that Sabre offers. We are combining Google Cloud’s infrastructure, AI and machine-learning capabilities with Sabre’s deep travel domain knowledge to create, not next, but third-generation solutions that we believe are smarter, faster and more cost-effective – a first-of-its kind in travel.”

Travel AI: Industry-first innovation using data insights and state-of-the art intelligence

Sabre Travel AI will deliver next-generation technology advancements that enrich products across the Sabre retail, distribution and fulfillment portfolio. Specifically, Sabre Travel AI capitalizes on Google Cloud AI solutions and automated machine learning tools that sense, analyze and predict consumer behaviors – using real-time shopping information and sophisticated travel-specific business insights.

This game-changing innovation is designed to enable airlines, agencies, corporations, hoteliers and other travel partners to take their retailing and digital customer experience strategies to the next level. By delivering the right offer, at the right time across all relevant channels, they will be positioned to deliver tailored personalization to travelers that should drive higher conversion rates and build traveler loyalty. Beyond retailing, customers will be able to power distribution strategies across all channels with the same unified approach and even deploy these Travel AI powered solutions in airports or mobile apps to better serve the traveler. For more information on these capabilities visit http://your.sabre.com/SabreTravelAI.

In the future, we expect that Sabre customers will be able to seamlessly integrate their own proprietary solutions with Sabre’s new Travel AI to create true differentiation in the marketplace. Sabre Travel AI will provide access to cloud-based, advanced technology tools to help prepare and store data sets, augment them with customer proprietary or other third party databases, rapidly test and learn with experimentation frameworks, develop and deploy proprietary machine learning models, understand model performance and quickly optimize and deploy new solutions in a scalable environment. Sabre Travel AI will help to accelerate the Company’s digital transformation by developing critical products and solutions focused on its customer’s current and future needs. The Company also stated that its strategic partners, like Google, will not have the right to access or use any of the Company’s or its customer’s data. How that data resides in Google Cloud is managed by the Company.

Forging the Future of Travel: Partnering with Google Cloud to Accelerate Innovation.

Creating an Innovation Framework to create the future of travel, Sabre and Google Cloud joined forces in January 2020 to imagine, develop and deploy capabilities that will advance the travel ecosystem. Sabre’s Travel AI is an output of that framework, and over time, the Company plans to integrate its intelligent and scalable technology across the breadth of the Sabre omni-channel retail, distribution and fulfillment offering.

“Since the inception of our strategic relationship with Sabre, one of our goals has been to bring together the talent and technology of both our companies to create the future of travel,” said Rob Enslin, president of Google Cloud. “Sabre Travel AI perfectly represents Google Cloud’s strategic vision to partner deeply with thought leaders in industry verticals to utilize Google Cloud’s innovative technologies to transform and create industry firsts. Today’s announcement is what we hope will be the first of many concepts generated from our partnership.”

Sabre is building upon foundational, proven products like dynamic availability and dynamic pricing for ancillaries, already using ML models. Through its partnership with Google, Sabre plans to continue to innovate using the new power source of Sabre Travel AI and launch more new retailing capabilities in the market beginning early 2021.

About Sabre Corporation

Sabre Corporation is a leading software and technology Company that powers the global travel industry, serving a wide range of travel companies including airlines, hoteliers, travel agencies and other suppliers. The Company provides retailing, distribution and fulfilment solutions that help its customers operate more efficiently, drive revenue and offer personalized traveler experiences. Through its leading travel marketplace, Sabre connects travel suppliers with buyers from around the globe. Sabre’s technology platform manages more than $260B worth of global travel spend annually. Headquartered in Southlake, Texas, USA, Sabre serves customers in more than 160 countries around the world. For more information visit www.sabre.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements herein are forward-looking statements about trends, future events, uncertainties and our plans and expectations of what may happen in the future. Any statements that are not historical or current facts are forward-looking statements. In many cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “expect,” “believe,” help,” “will,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “will,” “may,” “should,” “would,” “intend,” “potential” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Sabre’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performances or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the severity, extent and duration of the global COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our business and results of operations, financial condition and credit ratings, as well as on the travel industry and consumer spending more broadly, the actions taken to contain the disease or treat its impact, the effect of remote working arrangements on our operations and the speed and extent of the recovery across the broader travel ecosystem, dependency on transaction volumes in the global travel industry, particularly air travel transaction volumes, including from airlines’ insolvency, suspension of service or aircraft groundings, the effect of cost savings initiatives, the timing, implementation and effects of the technology investment and other strategic initiatives, the development, timing, completion and effects of platforms and related projects, the effects of strategic partnerships, travel suppliers’ usage of alternative distribution models, exposure to pricing pressure in the Travel Network business, changes affecting travel supplier customers, maintenance of the integrity of our systems and infrastructure and the effect of any security breaches, failure to adapt to technological advancements, competition in the travel distribution market and solutions markets, implementation of software solutions, reliance on third parties to provide information technology services and the effects of these services, the finalization of an agreement to implement a full-service property management system, the execution, implementation and effects of new, amended or renewed agreements, including anticipated savings, dependence on establishing, maintaining and renewing contracts with customers and other counterparties and collecting amounts due to us under these agreements, dependence on relationships with travel buyers, our collection, processing, storage, use and transmission of personal data and risks associated with PCI compliance, our ability to recruit, train and retain employees, including our key executive officers and technical employees, the financial and business results and effects of acquisitions, the effects of any litigation and regulatory reviews and investigations, including with respect to these acquisitions, adverse global and regional economic and political conditions, including, but not limited to, economic conditions in countries or regions with traditionally high levels of exports to China or that have commodities-based economies and the effect of “Brexit” and uncertainty due to related negotiations, risks arising from global operations, reliance on the value of our brands, failure to comply with regulations, use of third-party distributor partners, the effects of the implementation of new accounting standards, and tax-related matters, including the effect of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. More information about potential risks and uncertainties that could affect our business and results of operations is included in the “Risk Factors” and “Forward-Looking Statements” sections in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on August 10, 2020, in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 26, 2020 and in our other filings with the SEC. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future events, results, actions, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Unless required by law, Sabre undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events after the date they are made.

SABR-F

Contacts:
Media
Kristin Hays
kristin.hays@sabre.com

Heidi Castle
heidi.castle@sabre.com

sabrenews@sabre.com

Investors
Kevin Crissey
kevin.crissey@sabre.com
sabre.investorrelations@sabre.com