Sabre Corporation is making available agentic application programming interfaces (APIs) via its new, proprietary Model Context Protocol (MCP). This promises to unleash new potential in AI-driven travel retailing.
The MCP server acts as a universal translator, making the complex language of travel technology understandable to any AI agent. It is central to the introduction of agentic-ready APIs – meaning APIs that can act independently to achieve goals instead of responding to user requests.
The tools unlock the ability for AI to seamlessly shop, book, service and optimise trips in real time.
In empowering agentic AI, Sabre aims to move beyond digital optimisation and solve customer pain points that typically drain time. Initially, it will focus on flights, hotels and post-booking services.
Sabre claims that its agentic API could, with time, have the potential to power the likes of a call-centre proxy agent that waits on hold with an airline, secures a same-day rebooking, pays with stored card details and updates the traveller’s calendar. It may also be able to finalise complex changes, such as split tickets or fare combinability.
Tasks that travellers and travel agents spend hours on at present could be completed by leveraging agentic APIs. These include expense filing, which gathers receipts, codes them correctly and submits a report in compliance with company policy.
Sabre IQ has advanced from powering retail optimisation to using Large Language Model (LLM) technology – AI that can understand and respond in natural, conversational language. It underpins the innovation.
Developed in partnership with Google, Sabre’s Travel Data Cloud contains more than 50 petabytes (one petabyte being the equivalent of 1,000 terabytes) of historical and real-time signals. Aggregated, anonymised and encrypted, the data follows contractual and legal obligations and provides a rich base for agentic APIs.
