OpenAI has acquired AI-based travel services startup Odessia and hired its founder, Francis Davidson (프랜시스 데이비드슨). The move is seen as an effort to enter in earnest the AI agent market, which handles everything from itinerary recommendations to flight and lodging bookings.

On Nov. 12 local time, Taiwan media outlet IT Home reported that Davidson, Odessia's founder and CEO, announced on X, formerly Twitter, that he is joining OpenAI. OpenAI also confirmed it had hired Davidson, and Odessia's official website posted a notice saying the company had been acquired by OpenAI. The acquisition price was not disclosed.

Odessia is an AI travel startup launched this year. In June it secured $6 million (about 8.01 billion won) in a funding round involving Sequoia Capital and others, and last month it formally unveiled its AI travel guidance service.

The service analyzes users' preferences and past travel records to recommend destinations and itineraries, flights, lodging and restaurants. It also searches past booking histories stored in Gmail to build personalized information and offers a function in which an AI agent continuously tracks changes in flight and lodging prices.

According to Davidson, Odessia secured tens of thousands of early users and handled more than $60 million (about 80.13 billion won) in annualized travel planning over the summer. The existing service was discontinued after OpenAI acquired the company.

Davidson founded lodging platform Sonder in 2014. Sonder listed in the United States in 2021 but later suffered management difficulties and halted operations in November 2025. Its brand and website were later sold to travel technology company TravelAI.

OpenAI is currently working with travel platforms including Booking.com, Expedia and Kayak. On Nov. 10 it also unveiled a beta service called Businesses in ChatGPT, which supports companies communicating directly with customers on ChatGPT.

The acquisition gives OpenAI AI agent technology and business experience in the travel sector, but it did not announce specific plans to launch travel services. Attention is focused on whether ChatGPT will evolve into a platform that goes beyond travel information searches to directly carry out bookings and itinerary management.