Our Executive Function series introduces perspectives from leaders driving transformation through AI.
Expedia Group’s brands—including Expedia, Hotels.com, and VRBO—are powering the global travel industry. We spoke with Jochen Koedijk about the evolving role of the CMO, travel marketing agents, and how marketers can lead in an AI-powered world.
You’ve led consumer marketing across various industries. How have you seen the role of marketing—and the CMO—change over time?
It’s clear that this field has become much more data-driven.
Data used to be applied mainly to digital marketing and performance marketing, but now, with shifts in consumer media habits, cord-cutting, and connected TV, we’re seeing data and insights used across the entire marketing funnel. While creativity and emotional connection are still needed, the science behind marketing has advanced tremendously.
This shift requires a more experimental mindset. New behaviors, technologies, and methods are constantly emerging, so you have to stay curious and adaptable. Embracing failure is important because early experiments often don’t succeed. But the increasing ability to identify causality in marketing activities is also really exciting.
How has AI specifically helped your role as CMO? Do you have any advice for other marketing leaders as they embrace this transformation?
I would break it down into three areas.
- Insight and analytics: AI has changed how we operate activities like customer lifetime value modeling and auction systems with more scientific accuracy. Now, generative AI brings scale to descriptive analytics. I can dive deeper into marketing activities thanks to tools that summarize, detect trends, and analyze in real time. Instead of relying solely on analysts, we can now access insights instantly.
- Productivity and creative development: Generative AI helps us produce content at scale—text, images, video, even for brand advertising. It’s a leap in productivity for the entire in-house marketing team.
- Consumer behavior: Consumers are adopting new generative AI tools, which changes how they search and interact. Younger users especially are shifting from traditional search to tools like ChatGPT. That forces us to rethink how we drive traffic; SEO alone is no longer enough—we’re adapting to how people discover and interact with brands in these new environments.
“Generative AI has given me so much more scale.”
With those behavioral changes, do you see agents playing a role in the future of travel marketing?
Absolutely. There’s a lot of discussion about agentic systems, and I see a lot of real potential. For example, if I frequently travel to New York for business, I could just tell an agent, “I need to go again,” and it would handle everything based on my preferences. For leisure travel, people may still want control, but agents can quickly provide curated options.
Traditional processes like doing 10 Google searches—flights to Thailand, activities in Bangkok, etc.—can now be condensed into a few interactions. That opens opportunities for brands to develop their own agents to complement human interaction. It’s “and,” not “or.”
Do you see opportunities for AI to enhance customer relationships and loyalty?
Travel is a natural fit for generative search, and we’ve built some demos with companies like OpenAI and others. The inspiration phase is very powerful—turning dozens of searches into a back-and-forth conversation with AI. But when it comes to booking, people still turn to trusted platforms.
That’s where programs like One Key come in. With this program, we aim to maintain the relationship with customers from inspiration to booking. Our loyal membership tiers reward repeat usage and create a strong foundation for developing those relationships.
“Start with AI as a means to an end, not the end goal.”
Companies sometimes struggle to build internal AI proficiency. How have you driven that within your marketing organization?
Everything starts with recognizing that AI is a means to an end—not the destination. Our goal is brand growth, traffic, and conversion. When teams see that AI can drive those outcomes faster, they’ll be motivated.
We’re fortunate to have a comprehensive in-house marketing team, including a marketing ML science group. But generative AI has democratized the use of AI. You no longer need to be a data scientist to extract value from AI. That’s when proficiency becomes important.
We’ve succeeded by creating cross-functional teams—combining creative experts with ML scientists, programmers, and marketers to work together on specific use cases. This creates a culture of experimentation and removes fear. People realize AI isn’t taking their jobs, it’s expanding their capabilities.
Have you seen any tangible results from this cultural shift?
Yes, we can now create more—and much faster. Travel is an inspirational field, and we have a huge content library: hundreds of thousands of properties and vacation rentals. Generative AI helps us turn that scale into engaging content—especially video.
We’ve used that content for brand campaigns, social, and organic at a pace that traditional methods would have taken years to achieve. At the same time, we’ve used tools from OpenAI to moderate content quality—ensuring only high-quality, appropriate assets are displayed. That protects our reputation and increases engagement.
“Generative AI [...] means you don’t have to be a machine learning scientist to truly leverage AI at scale.”
Looking ahead, what skills will marketers need to lead in an AI-powered world?
It’s less about skills and more about mindset than skillset. You can teach skills—but you can’t teach curiosity, openness, or the willingness to embrace the discomfort of learning.
Marketers need to be willing to experiment and tolerate that discomfort with an ever-expanding skillset like prompt engineering, multimodal integration, and a relentless drive to iterate.
Ultimately, connecting diverse roles—creative, programmers, marketers—is crucial to create magical collaboration, unlocking entirely new ideas about AI’s impact.
Expedia Group uses OpenAI APIs to automate the process of accurately identifying and displaying images for customers searching on their travel websites. They also use ChatGPT across the entire marketing department to serve various creative use cases for employees.