OpenAI has acquired an AI travel agent called Odessia, according to Odessia’s founder, Francis Davidson. Davidson says in a post announcing the deal that he’s now working for OpenAI, helping the AI lab with the future of travel.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but this looks like an acqui-hire. Davidson’s announcement focused largely on how he built his AI travel agent Odessia by directing teams of AI agents. The year-old Odessia raised a $6 million pre-seed round led by Sequoia, and launched its AI travel agent around 5 months ago. Davidson says that it had helped early adopters plan millions of dollars worth of travel, but the tool has already been shut down.
OpenAI did not announce this acquisition, nor confirm it to TechCrunch, when asked. Nor has it announced new travel-specific products or plans. It does, however, count such companies as Bookings.com, Expedia, and KAYAK as customers or partners.
Travel is one of the main areas that people are using personal AI assistants to help with. And, back in July, 2025, when OpenAI launched its ChatGPT agent, it mentioned travel as one of its potential uses.
Acquiring Odessia is interesting for another reason. Davidson is well known in the travel industry after he founded a travel startup called Sonder as a college student in 2014.
