OpenAI has acquired Odessia, a startup that built an AI travel agent. Odessia confirmed the deal on its website on November 10, 2026: "OpenAI has acquired Odessia. We started Odessia to reinvent travel. This acquisition marks an exciting next chapter for that mission."
The Odessia service has been shut down. Its site says the service "is no longer available" and gives a support email address for customers with existing bookings. Neither company disclosed the terms.
Odessia was founded by Francis Davidson, who previously founded the short-term rental company Sonder, and he announced the deal in a post on X. An OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company is "thrilled to welcome Francis to OpenAI," and Davidson is now working on travel at OpenAI. OpenAI has not announced a travel-specific product.
The acquisition adds a team with experience building an agent for a task that involves many steps, live inventory and payments. Travel booking is one of the jobs AI agents are most often expected to take on. OpenAI already has agent features in ChatGPT that can browse sites and complete tasks for users.
For travel companies and booking platforms, the deal signals that OpenAI is investing directly in trip planning inside ChatGPT, rather than relying only on outside apps and integrations.