In the past February, many travel enterprises gathered together to apply ChatGPT, and the craze about ChatGPT is accelerating in generate. However, the controversy also started quickly. Some people say that ChatGPT is a slogan, while others say that it is a gimmick. What kind of picture will it be when ChatGPT-like applications "enter the circle" to travel?
This February and March belongs to ChatGPT.
In the past February, many travel companies got together to apply ChatGPT. On February 15th, Ctrip announced that it had become the first batch of ecological partners of Baidu Wenxin Yiyan (English name: ERNIE Bot). The Qunar platform has launched the intelligent question-and-answer robot "Universal AI Camel" of Chat GPT, which helps users to customize their itinerary and answer problems in travel. The included questions cover the recommendation of tourist routes, toilets in scenic spots, and eating mushrooms by mistake.
On February 28th, Wuxi Cultural Tourism Committee announced that it had become the first batch of ecological partners of Baidu Wenxin Yiyan. In the follow-up, the Wuxi County Cultural Tourism Committee will fully experience and access the ability of Wenxin to say a word through Baidu APP. On the same day, Chongqing Wulong District Cultural Tourism Commission also announced that it had become the first batch of ecological partners of Baidu Wenxin Yiyan, marking the first landing of dialogue language model technology in various scenic spots in Wulong.
In March, Wenxin will soon be open to the public. The craze of ChatGPT is accelerating generate.
However, the debate also started quickly. As far as the current version of ChatGPT is concerned, in the repeated tests of users, ChatGPT has many problems such as common sense dislocation, data distortion, fabrication of false information, etc., which are regarded as its undeniable weakness.
Some people say that ChatGPT is a "window", and some people say that ChatGPT is just a "gimmick". Looking forward to the future, what kind of picture will it be when ChatGPT-like applications "enter the circle"?
01 ChatGPT is just frying cold rice?
If we say that the products represented by Metauniverse provoked the industry’s emotions in the past year, then at present, ChatGPT seems to be "popular".
However, looking at the domestic travel agencies and enterprises that have entered the market, it seems that the application at this stage is more at the customer service level, such as the intelligent question-and-answer robot of Qunar platform.
Intelligent customer service has been popular in China for many years.
In the 1990s, the Internet was not popular, customer service was mainly based on telephone communication, and call center was mainly based on hard switching technology.
In 2000, the Internet began to spread, traditional customer service software entered large enterprises, and call centers based on softswitch technology appeared.
Around 2010, technologies such as mobile Internet, cloud computing and big data began to be applied, and cloud call centers and cloud customer service software based on SaaS appeared.
Even the latest online "Universal AI Camel" is not new. As early as 2017, AI customer service camel has already appeared in the business innovation where to go.
Empowered by a new generation of AI technology, the customer service system is integrated with the Internet, and an innovative intelligent service model is introduced into the customer service center.
The waiting of "busy human seats" seems to prove the limitations of intelligent customer service. Although ChatGPT has the learning ability, it is still necessary to establish a very detailed and in-depth knowledge map in customer service, which is far beyond the content that search engines can provide.
Therefore, even though ChatGPT has achieved a good effect of man-made dialogue, from the practical application of cultural tourism, it is still only a new form of intelligent customer service, and the form is greater than the content. This means that from the current stage of development, for OTA platforms such as Ctrip and Qunar, which are represented by standardized products such as machine wine and tour group agents, the application scenarios of ChatGPT will be even bigger, while for non-standard products or customized products such as B&B, it seems that there are still many problems to be solved urgently.
02 ChatGPT public opinion fever may have ended, and the core issues have begun to stand out.
Baidu index shows that the search popularity of "ChatGPT" reached its peak on February 8, and then it fell off a cliff. It seems that the internet giants have gathered together to enter the market with great vigour.
As mentioned above, although ChatGPT, as a generative AI, has mobilized a lot of capital and talents, the public’s cognition, the underlying logic of application and the development of AI cannot advance by leaps and bounds.
This also means that the ChatGPT public opinion is likely to have ended. On the other hand, the core issues of development have gradually become prominent.
First of all, the meta-universe was popular for a while in 2022, and ChatGPT was popular after the opening of 2023. Many technologies still need to be optimized, and the gap between intelligent question answering and manual service still exists. As a typical non-standard product, B&B is a more representative case.
Traditionally, non-standard products and services provided by Minsu are still necessary for human customer service, in order to understand and clarify complex problems or satisfy the desire for "human touch", regardless of waiting time. As a natural "tour guide", especially for the landlord who provides landlord friendship service, the personalized landlord service needs more information input and learning from AI. Comparatively speaking, Muniao B&B and Meituan B&B with more experience in C-side operation will be better databases.
To give an inappropriate analogy, if you want to completely replace labor, ChatGPT is like a foreign candidate in the CET-4, and the challenge you have to face is not just the "meaning" in the simple Chinese exam. This is why Booking is in no hurry to apply generative AI to the platform.
When A Dai gave the leader a red envelope, the conversation between them was quite interesting.
Leader: What do you mean?
A Dai: Nothing interesting, just interesting.
Leader: You are not interesting enough.
A Dai: Nothing, nothing.
Leader: You are really interesting.
A Dai: Actually, there is no other meaning.
Leader: Then I’m sorry.
A Dai: I’m sorry.
Leader: You must mean something.
A Dai: It’s really boring.
Leader: Since it doesn’t mean anything, what do you mean?
A Dai: Actually, what I mean is to think.
Leader: Since you mean what you mean, that means what you mean.
A Dai cried: I just wanted to mean it. However, there is really no other meaning. What’s the point of such a small red envelope? It’s just meaning.
The leader smiled: Hehe. I’m a little interested in you.
A Dai le le: hee hee. That’s what I’m saying.
Secondly, ChatGPT is a subversion of the old system. Before ChatGPT, the search was all realized by keywords. For example, I want to know which hotel in Chongqing is good, and directly search the city+location. After ChatGPT, I can directly ask which hotel has characteristics, is cheap and has quality, and has few bad reviews. Once the search method changes, the whole logic of search changes.
It is not easy to land, so we should "give priority to me"
However, we should also see that whether the big manufacturers get together to enter ChatGPT, or the participation and wait-and-see in various fields at present, it means that the generative AI including ChatGPT will continue to become a trend for a long time to come.
Since 2019, the technology of "AI+ Cloud" has been continuously explored. Whether it is Ctrip’s personalized recommendation supported by artificial intelligence or the refined operation of Wooden Bird B&B, it is essentially to meet the needs of users, that is, "me".
In July 2022, Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism released the first batch of 10 representative application scenarios of "AI+ Cultural Travel" in Suzhou.
With the algorithm breakthrough brought by ChatGPT, AIGC knocked on the door of AI to the new world. According to the analysis of western securities, 2023 is expected to be a great year for the development of AIGC, and the market outlook is expected to create a market exceeding one trillion yuan. The breakthrough of ChatGPT also means that AI has begun to move towards the development path of creating new content.
Therefore, on the whole, even if the popularity of openAI goes calm with the opening of ChatGPT, the development of AIGC still has great capital attraction and subversive innovation.
Fang Tengfei, vice president of Tencent Cloud and general manager of the cultural tourism industry, believes that with the change of the entrance of tourism consulting and booking services, the form of tourism products will change accordingly, from standardization to customization. Provide more personalized solutions in a low-cost and efficient way. In order to obtain a more general and easy-to-use model, more domain-related data accumulation and algorithm innovation are needed.
Learn what? Accumulate what? "I" has already performed. In 2018 and 2019, Ctrip’s iOS download volume was stable at around 10W, with the highest download volume per day of 24W+, and it was stable at around 4W in recent years. Even in the Spring Festival of 2023, when the recovery volume was amazing, the download volume per day was at 5W+, and the number of new users was seriously attenuated. Flying pigs and going anywhere show similar development trajectories.
Therefore, OTA, ticketing platform and so on contribute more to the old user data, and the conversation data is traditional, but standard and rich. As Liam Fedus, a researcher at OpenAI, said, observing the rich and innovative application scenarios provided by users, through the iterative process of deployment, feedback and continuous improvement, we can produce the most demanding and powerful technology. The user data of the B&B booking platform is more innovative, which tends to be more experiential.
In the summer of 2022, the maximum download volume per day reached 2.1W+, which once approached the OTA platform. Emerging cultural tourism products such as homestay, intangible cultural heritage, recreation and vacation have more trainability.
In terms of categories, OTA platforms, hotels, scenic spots and other fields with higher standardization will be accessed faster in a short period of time, but the characteristics of generative AI are destined to be customized trips and more personalized B&B tours in the future, as Fang Tengfei said. There will be deeper exploration space.
The contemporary needs of self-occupation, self-driving, personalization and diversity require general AI capabilities such as ChatGPT to create more consumption scenarios to meet the high-quality development driven by the supply side. Platforms that have been deeply cultivated on the supply side for many years, with more houses and more characteristics, will have more growth potential, such as Muniao B&B. However, how to prevent abuse and the discussion of copyright and originality that comes with it is also a problem that must be solved in future generative AI.
Just as booking is worried, only by solving the application scenario of the product itself can players have the "capital" to consider how to infiltrate these more mature AI into the B-side and consumer experience.
References:
1. Dachang fights ChatGPT；; Lanmeihui
2. Science and Technology Cloud Report: Why can’t ChatGPT, which is "fire to explosion", be an intelligent customer service? Science and technology cloud report
3. Is the spring of tourism coming? Zhanjiang daily digital newspaper
This article was originally published by Yi Qing after Rain. Everyone is a product manager. It is forbidden to reprint without permission.
The title map comes from Unsplash and is based on CC0 protocol.
