MakeMyTrip CTO Flags India Language Gap Amid GenAI Travel Push

Why It Matters

The language gap limits AI adoption in India’s fast‑growing travel market, and firms that can deliver localized, end‑to‑end GenAI solutions will capture a sizable competitive edge.

Key Takeaways

• 45% of MakeMyTrip traffic now comes from Tier‑2/3 cities.
• Indian language models remain immature, limiting GenAI travel experiences.
• CTO calls for India‑built AI models and dedicated funding.
• GenAI shifts queries from keyword searches to multi‑intent conversational requests.
• Execution, not just AI hype, will differentiate travel platforms.

Pulse Analysis

India’s AI ecosystem has long lagged behind the West in building robust, high‑quality language models for its myriad regional tongues. Most commercial models are trained on English‑centric data and then retrofitted for Indian users, resulting in poor accuracy for vernacular queries. Venture capital and government initiatives have begun to address this gap, but funding remains fragmented and risk‑averse. A concerted push to develop large‑scale Indian corpora and train native models could unlock a new wave of AI‑driven services for the country’s billion‑plus internet users.

In travel, generative AI is redefining how consumers plan trips. Instead of entering separate searches for flights, hotels and activities, users now describe an entire itinerary in a single, conversational prompt that includes budget, preferences and constraints. This shift forces platforms to move beyond traditional, step‑by‑step booking funnels toward semantically aware systems that can parse intent, context and sentiment in real time. MakeMyTrip’s investment in a unified data stack—linking user intent with supply‑side inventory—illustrates how operators are re‑architecting their technology to meet these demands, even as their in‑house assistant, Myra, remains limited to early‑stage discovery.

The strategic implication is clear: firms that can combine localized language models with a seamless, end‑to‑end AI workflow will dominate India’s travel booking landscape. Execution will be the differentiator; merely adopting generic AI tools will not suffice. Companies must secure dedicated capital for model development, build extensive multilingual content libraries, and integrate AI across the full customer journey—from inspiration to post‑travel support. As the market matures, investors and policymakers who back India‑built AI infrastructure will likely reap outsized returns, while early adopters of fully integrated GenAI experiences stand to capture a larger share of the rapidly expanding travel spend.