Kismet
Headquarters: New York
CEO: Jason Cincotta
Website: Kismet
Founding date: December 2023
Investment: $1M
Kismet turns AI search into direct bookings. Hotels use Kismet to launch a digital storefront, catalog and checkout purpose-built for guests planning with AI.
PhocusWire coverage
Below, we asked Kismet to share strategic goals for 2026 and lessons learned since founding.
Strategic goals for 2026
In 2026, we’re focused on simplicity: make it easy for hotels to stand up an AI storefront, show a catalog of rooms and rates and route checkout to their own booking engine. Next year, AI assistants won’t book travel on their own, but they will decide where guests book—and more of those bookings will happen right in chat.
Lessons learned since founding
AEO isn’t SEO. Getting found and booked by AI is a technical problem. Nobody wants to use a hotel’s chatbot.
Guests love trip planning with AI tools, but the experience is only as good as the information a hotel makes available. OTAs are easier for AI to use, so they get quoted—even though the info is often wrong. The fix is pretty simple: expose better information, make it more legible and serve it the right way. Make your website more than a brochure. Hotels that do will get booked.
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