About Brett Keller
Brett Keller, CEO of Priceline, announced his departure from the company after 26 years, with his successor Bridget Zimmerman taking over on January 1, 2025. In a December 2024 interview, Keller stated he would remain for a few months to ensure a smooth transition. He said his biggest piece of advice to his successor was to "make sure you have the best possible team working around you." Keller expressed pride in "surviving some of the most challenging hits that a company can take over 25 years and coming out on top." He also said that Priceline's decision to keep the brand limited to North America was a "mistake" and that the company should have expanded worldwide.
Throughout 2024, Keller discussed travel demand and the use of artificial intelligence. He stated that travel was "holding up quite well" despite inflation, with consumers continuing to prioritize travel over other spending. Keller noted that hotel prices were beginning to level off and that airlines were improving operationally, though he acknowledged that air travel had been "a mess" due to staffing shortages and delays. He highlighted Priceline's AI chatbot, "Penny," saying the company was using OpenAI's technology to create more natural conversations for planning, booking, and customer service. Keller said that AI would make travel "easier and faster" and that the industry was "finally on the verge of great personalization in travel."
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Brett Keller's recent appearances.
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Transcript (12 segments)
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Interviewer0:11
To talk about generative AI. How did you go with generative AI?
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Brett Keller0:21
We partner with several companies, but we're leaning heavily on OpenAI, and their technology is impressive. Over the coming weeks, we'll see more and more upgrades that create an environment where you can speak directly to our chatbot Penny, like you're speaking to your best friend.
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Interviewer0:39
Was it a close contest between OpenAI and some of the others out there, or were they the clear candidate?
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Brett Keller0:47
At the moment, they are the closest to producing a voice product that can give us what we need. Within the responses and things that Penny is able to give you as a consumer, Penny does rely on... to run a chatbot and a generative AI voice model. Most of the cost comes in the engineering time. With each new model that's been released by OpenAI, for example, our costs continue to go down with each new model. Offsetting that is usage. We have had over a million conversations taking place within Penny, and we have to balance the cost with the benefit that provides to our business.
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Interviewer1:36
Are any humans directly involved with the operation of Penny?
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Brett Keller1:39
Not in the actual engagement and responses that she provides. However, there are a number of humans behind the scenes building out the technology to connect Penny to many different services and to data, including engineers, product managers, et cetera, so she can give the best... directly with Penny to do a number of things: service your product, cancel your reservation, or book a hotel. Voice just launched yesterday. This is the very first iteration. It's not yet using OpenAI's latest real-time voice. We've been alpha testing that with them, and we will be one of the first brands to launch that in the next few weeks. You can engage with Penny now, but it will get better once this new connection goes into play.
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Interviewer2:39
What is the use case? So I, the consumer, might be sitting on my couch, thinking about a vacation, previously typing with your chatbot, but now I can talk to it directly?
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Brett Keller2:55
You can say, 'Penny, I would...' quickly recommend those to you and help you plan your trip.
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Interviewer3:15
Two areas in application of generative AI: increasing sales, which you hope Penny and voice Penny can do, and number two, increasing organizational productivity. So we talked about the former, but on the latter front, any other way you're deploying AI broadly throughout the organization to make it leaner?
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Brett Keller3:35
Absolutely. We have applications across the company that we're using internally. One is to help engineers become more productive in developing and deploying code. This is showing that especially for engineers who are younger in their careers, rather than having a second developer review their code, generative AI does that for them. So we can get it to market faster, and just have higher... just better qualified candidates coming to the door.
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Interviewer4:21
Would you go like the Karma CEO is using it to replace Salesforce?
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Brett Keller4:31
I wouldn't say it's gone that far for us yet. We have been investing on the consumer side in terms of productivity. We think one of the biggest use cases over the next year in travel will be for customer service. There's a lot of interactions that take place every day, tens of thousands, where people are stranded and need support. This technology has proven already that it can reduce the amount of time that it takes for...
