Booking Holdings CEO Glenn D. Fogel at Semafor Tech: First Principles
📅 Jun 15, 2026Semafor Events12 MIN22 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
Booking Holdings CEO Glenn D. Fogel joins Semafor Chief Commercial Officer Rachel Oppenheim at Semafor Tech: First ...
What Glenn Fogel said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, discussed how AI can transform travel by coordinating complex systems and personalizing the connected trip, while acknowledging the 'creepy factor' and the importance of trust. He emphasized that AI will replace jobs, citing the elimination of thousands of translator roles, and stressed the need for companies to ensure all 25,000 employees are AI literate, with governments leading on societal disruption. Fogel corrected that Booking operates in 220 countries and territories, and argued that regulatory complexity, data sovereignty, and payment issues make it hard for startups to replace established global companies. He dismissed the idea that LLMs will own customer relationships, saying there is no universal moat, and that Booking's advantage lies in partnering with frontier model owners and leveraging its expertise.
Key takeaways
Booking operates in 220 countries and territories, counting Puerto Rico separately.
Booking has eliminated thousands of human translator roles over 20 years, now having none.
Fogel is working to make all 25,000 employees AI literate.
Fogel believes no company has a universal moat against LLMs, but Booking's expertise and partnerships provide an edge.
Fogel called the idea that a 17-year-old could replace Booking with code 'preposterous'.
2:52But when does that experience kind of cross over into the intrusive?
4:40How are you thinking about the balance between automation and better service, but also how that connects with responsibility to the workforce in parallel?
8:34And as that regulation and as those policies actually start to diverge globally, how do you possibly build AI systems that can operate coherently in that environment?
10:11We started to talk about it a little bit in terms of regulation and privacy, but what's to stop an LLM from just grabbing that relationship?
I'm doing excellent. A little tired. Travel's been interesting in the last couple days, but that's part of the beauty of AI. We'll be able to fix all of these problems.
Well, you're going to have to tell us how. On the travel front, I know I just mentioned this just to introduce you and what you do a little bit as CEO of Booking Holdings. I think many of you probably know and interact with the company every single day, but Booking Holdings is one of the largest digital platforms, comprised of brands like Booking.com, Kayak, Priceline, OpenTable. You were running my life. You've led the company in an evolution really into a global technology platform that's increasingly focused on AI and what you are calling the connected trip. So I'm excited to really get into it and specifically to start, you've described travel as a space where everything can go wrong, whether payments, logistics, regulation, and where systems have historically not talked to each other in order to make this all click. So first from a first principles perspective, do you think that the real breakthrough in AI in travel is it intelligence? Is it coordination? Where do you really see that coming together?
Well, so many ways and it is interesting. I think everybody here, if I asked you, 'Have you had any frustration in travel?' I am certain every single hand would go up, of course. And when you look at it, it's unfortunate because you think this is the perfect place where something like AI should make things so much better. And it will and it is already making it so much better, but there's so much more to do. It's certainly the bringing together all these different systems is incredibly difficult to do and important. But what's interesting to me sometimes, particularly in this part of the world, is maybe it's a lack of understanding of how complex travel really is. A lot of people don't realize behind when they're putting together their travel plans, the incredible issues you have to deal with behind the scenes. And that's where AI really will help. So, people see the front, 'Oh, it's going to help me know where to go, what's doing all that.' But actually putting together, piecing together, there's so many permutations. If you actually worked it out yourself, you have a family of four, you want to do travel, you want to go couple places, maybe, and what are we going to do, and how do we get there, and when we do get there, if there's any problem, how's it going to be fixed, and all that. That stuff people don't think about a lot, but that's something that we're thinking about all the time. And I am certain that using the Connected Trip, being with that one point of contact that knows you, that personalizes what you need and your family or your friends, what you really will be optimal for you, is going to be a great step forward.
I think the promise of AI in a lot of ways, and you just touched on this, is that aspect of personalization. But personalization I think can also raise questions about trust and transparency. How, in your role, are you thinking about building AI products that feel really additive? But when does that experience kind of cross over into the intrusive?
The creepiness factor, right? Yeah. No, that's definitely an issue. And certainly you look at your trust. If you trust your doctor, then you'll tell your doctor incredibly intimate things, because that's going to give you better service, and you feel that relationship, right?
Fogel, G. (2026, June 15). Booking Holdings CEO Glenn D. Fogel at Semafor Tech: First Principles [Interview transcript]. Semafor Events. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/986879/
MLA
Glenn Fogel. "Booking Holdings CEO Glenn D. Fogel at Semafor Tech: First Principles." Semafor Events, 15 Jun. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/986879/.
BibTeX
@misc{fogel2026_986879,
author = {Glenn Fogel},
title = {Booking Holdings CEO Glenn D. Fogel at Semafor Tech: First Principles},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Semafor Events. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {jun},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/986879/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
