Artificial intelligence answer engine Perplexity has announced a new feature that allows users to book hotels directly within its platform, thanks to a collaboration with Selfbook and Tripadvisor.

Revealed by Perplexity’s co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas via LinkedIn, the feature introduces a new “mode” system that enhances Perplexity’s search experience for specific verticals such as travel, shopping, places, images, videos, and jobs. With the new travel mode, users can now search for hotels using natural language queries, and receive results based on Selfbook’s booking infrastructure and Tripadvisor’s reviews and data—all within the Perplexity interface.

A video shared by Srinivas showcased how users can select the travel mode and complete a hotel booking seamlessly, without leaving the platform. The integration leverages Selfbook’s payment and booking technology, a company recognized by PhocusWire as one of the Hot 25 Travel Startups of 2023.

“The next step is to get super precise, so that users don’t have to navigate through multiple tabs,” said Srinivas. The feature is currently live on the web platform, with mobile support coming soon. Additionally, Srinivas teased that Perplexity Pro users will receive exclusive benefits, including discounted hotel bookings, with more details to follow.

Speaking to PhocusWire ahead of the launch, Selfbook CEO Khalid Meniri emphasized the company’s role in powering the booking layer through a single API. “At our core, we’re a fintech company, but we’re really providing the infrastructure for booking,” Meniri said.

He also called 2025 the “year of action… agentic action,” where booking and purchases should happen at the moment of inspiration, without the friction of navigating multiple web pages. While hotels are the starting point, Meniri hinted that flights and car rentals could be added next.

The integration builds upon a previously announced partnership between Tripadvisor and Perplexity in January, which included Tripadvisor’s AI-generated summaries, reviews, and more than 300,000 experiences from Viator. The aim is to provide personalized, actionable recommendations that simplify the trip planning process.

“This is a key move toward making Perplexity a daily-use product that goes beyond just delivering answers in text,” Srinivas said. “Structured answers that include images, videos, and cards with built-in commercial transactions are necessary to challenge players like Google.”

The move aligns with a broader trend of agentic AI tools in 2025, following the recent launches of OpenAI’s Operator and Amazon’s Alexa+, both of which include travel booking capabilities.

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