The biggest tech shift in travel isn't AGI — it's real-time translation, says a luxury hotel mogul
Such frictionless conversations, Banyan Group founder Kwon Ping Ho says, will "open up the boundaries of travel in a big, big way."
Ho, who launched his first resort on an abandoned tin mine in Phuket, Thailand in 1994, has spent over 30 years in the hospitality industry. The 72-year-old told Business Insider that when it comes to AI, tools like simultaneous translation will make a big splash in his industry.
"The one AI that I think will revolutionize our industry and travel is oddly enough, not AGI. That's science fiction because nobody can imagine what it's really going to lead to," Ho said on the sidelines of the International Conference on Cohesive Societies held in Singapore last month.
AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a theoretical form of AI that is capable of thinking and reasoning like humans. Experts are split on when exactly AGI will be achieved. Some say AGI will be ready in two years, but others say it is decades away.
Real-time translation software, on the other hand, could have a similar impact on travel as budget carriers did, Ho said.
"One of the biggest impediments to tourism travel is the language barrier, and the places you can go to. It's never been a problem for people to go on group tours and have a tour guide who speaks the language. But as you go deeper into experiential travel, you want to go and talk to people directly," he added.
Ho said such software would make travelers more confident to venture into far-flung destinations even if they do not speak the local language. He compared it to the rise of budget airline carriers, which took off in the 1990s and 2000s and opened up lower-cost travel to more people.
"When you get instant translation, that's going to make people go into so many areas they normally wouldn't go," he added. "People can go to the remotest village in Japan or Indonesia and not feel strange at all."
Ho isn't the only hospitality mogul who said that AI will impact the industry, albeit in a limited fashion, given that the technology is still in its nascent stages.
Brian Chesky, the cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, said on the company's earnings call in February that he didn't think AI is "quite ready for prime time." Chesky said Airbnb would implement AI in its customer service functions first before expanding it to other areas.
"It's still really early. It's probably similar to like, the mid to late-90s for the internet. So I think it's going to have a profound impact on travel, but I don't think it's yet fundamentally changed for any of the large travel platforms," Chesky said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Down 28%, Should You Buy the Dip on CoreWeave?
Key Points CoreWeave has been one of the biggest surprises in the stock market this year. Revenue at the AI infrastructure company grew by 420% last year. The stock has several risks investors should be aware of. 10 stocks we like better than CoreWeave › CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) has been the biggest IPO of the year so far. After weaker-than-expected demand for its IPO, CoreWeave went public for a lower price than it had targeted, and Nvidia came in and invested in the stock to help prop up the offering. The stock then slumped as the broad market sold off in response to the "Liberation Day" tariffs that President Trump issued. However, after bottoming in April, CoreWeave began to rally, tracking with a boom in AI stocks. From its IPO price of $40, the stock soared as high as $187 on June 20, a nearly 400% gain. Since then, the stock has come down to earth, falling 28% from that peak. Should investors buy the dip in the stock? Let's take a closer look. High risk, high reward CoreWeave is one of the fastest-growing stocks in the market, and because of its growth and lack of profitability, it's also one of the highest-risk stocks. CoreWeave started out as a crypto mining company, but using its stockpile of GPUs, it pivoted to an AI-focused cloud infrastructure business during the crypto winter in 2019, and its business began to take off in 2023, after ChatGPT was launched. In fact, its revenue grew by more than 100x from 2022 to 2024, and its growth rate remained scorching hot in the first quarter of 2025 as revenue jumped 420% to $981.6 million. CoreWeave depends on building out data centers so it can supply its customers, like Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI, with computing capacity. As a result, the company has had to take on a lot of debt to purchase the GPUs to run its AI infrastructure business. In the first quarter, the company reported an operating loss of $27.5 million, but its interest expense was $263.8 million because it has $8.7 billion in high-interest debt. Its interest rate is a reflection of the risk debt-holders see in the business, as the company barely had any revenue two years ago. CoreWeave has several other risks, including high customer concentration. Last year, Microsoft made up more than half of its revenue, and a report that it was opting out of buying more data center capacity from CoreWeave helped put pressure on the IPO. It's also dependent on continuing growth in AI, and it needs to be able to turn a profit on the GPUs it buys before it has to replace them. The business is so new, and growing so quickly, that it's not clear if it will be able to do that. In the first quarter of 2025, the company spent $1.4 billion on capital expenditures, more than its revenue, and the company expects to spend $20 billion to $23 billion on AI infrastructure this year. Any company of CoreWeave's size growing by 420% deserves investor attention, but investors should be aware of the risks as well. Is CoreWeave a buy? For the right kind of investor, CoreWeave looks like a buy, despite the risks noted above. The company's soaring growth can't be ignored, and the cloud infrastructure business model has been highly profitable for more-established companies like Microsoft and Amazon. Given the growth opportunity in front of it, CoreWeave is unlikely to be profitable for years, and it could be years before the company even starts to improve its unit economics. Based on its revenue run rate, its price-to-sales ratio is 15, which seems pretty low for a company growing this fast. For risk-tolerant investors interested in a pure-play AI stock, getting some exposure to CoreWeave makes sense, and dollar-cost averaging is a good way to do it. At this point, the stock is likely to continue to be volatile, and there should be more dips to capitalize on in the future. Should you buy stock in CoreWeave right now? Before you buy stock in CoreWeave, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and CoreWeave wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $652,133!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,056,790!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jeremy Bowman has positions in Amazon and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Down 28%, Should You Buy the Dip on CoreWeave? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Entrepreneur
12 minutes ago
- Entrepreneur
Qualcomm's Smart Move With Glasses
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. With an aim to make smart glasses become an integral part of daily life, Qualcomm Technologies is partnering with Lenskart. This move reflects a concerted effort to bring cutting-edge, AI-enabled smart eyewear solutions to Indian consumers. Over 100-plus mixed reality (MR), virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) devices globally are powered by Snapdragon XR Platforms, the power behind Qualcomm's smart glasses and extended reality. Qualcomm aims to drive the development and adoption of extended reality (XR) by providing the foundational hardware, software, and platform solutions needed to create immersive and interactive experiences. This milestone signals a new era in bringing spatial computing to Indian consumers and positioning India prominently in the global immersive technology ecosystem. Savi Soin, senior vice president, Qualcomm India, said, "India is leading a transformative shift in how reality is experienced. Qualcomm Technologies envision a future where smart glasses become as integral to daily life as smartphones, seamlessly handling everyday tasks. Snapdragon platforms are engineered to deliver a balance of sleek, lightweight design with powerful functionality,making smart glasses practical and intuitive for everyday use. Aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat, this technology will empower frontline workers, transform education in remote areas, and enable truly inclusive digital access." As Qualcomm Technologies continues to expand beyond smartphones, it remains committed to enabling transformative innovation across industries. Alex Katouzian, group general manager, mobile, compute & XR (MCX), Qualcomm Technologies, said, "AI is playing in the growth opportunity for XR - enabling AI to see what you see and hear what you hear to enable personalized and intuitive experiences. These platforms are pivotal in ushering in a new era of next generation computing that is more immersive, intuitive, and seamlessly integrated into everyday life." The use cases showcase cutting-edge innovations across entertainment, content capture, fitness, and education, highlighting the explosion of possibilities with spatial computing. Qualcomm has developed the Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 and AR1+ Gen 1 chipsets specifically for smart glasses, enabling them to function as standalone devices with on-device AI capabilities. The AR1+ Gen 1 is designed for enhanced image quality, size and power improvements, and can run Small Language Models (SLMs). This allows for tasks like voice commands and real-time translation to be processed directly on the glasses.
The Verge
13 minutes ago
- The Verge
Meta snubs the EU's voluntary AI guidelines
Meta says it won't sign the European Union's artificial intelligence code of practice agreement, warning that 'Europe is heading down the wrong path on AI.' The code published by the EU on July 10th is a voluntary set of guidelines to help companies follow the AI Act's rules around general-purpose AI before they come into effect in a few weeks. 'We have carefully reviewed the European Commission's Code of Practice for general-purpose AI (GPAI) models and Meta won't be signing it,' Meta's global affairs chief, Joel Kaplan, said via a statement on LinkedIn. 'This Code introduces a number of legal uncertainties for model developers, as well as measures which go far beyond the scope of the AI Act.' While the code of practice itself isn't legally enforced, the EU says that general-purpose AI model providers who sign it will benefit from a 'reduced administrative burden and increased legal certainty,' compared to providers that may otherwise be subject to more regulatory scrutiny. OpenAI announced its intention to sign the agreement on July 11th. This comes ahead of AI Act rules coming into force on August 2nd that require general-purpose AI providers to be transparent about training and security risks for their models, and abide by EU and national copyright laws. The EU can fine companies that violate the AI Act up to seven percent of their annual sales. Kaplan says that Meta is concerned that the EU's landmark AI rulebook will act to throttle frontier model development and deployment in Europe, stunting European companies that comply with the bloc's regulations. These concerns echo those raised in a letter signed by more than 45 companies and organizations last month, including Airbus, Mercedes-Benz, Philips, and ASML, that urged the EU to postpone the implementation of its landmark AI Act regulation for two years to address uncertainty around compliance. The EU's efforts to tighten AI regulations stand in contrast to attitudes in the US, where the Trump administration is actively removing such roadblocks. Meta's refusal to sign the EU's code isn't entirely surprising, given that the scorned company has been slapped with billions in fines under the EU's regulatory landscape, and has aligned itself with the Trump administration's lax views around tech regulations.
