Travel Trends with Dan Christian
#1 B2B Travel Podcast. If you are looking to stay ahead in the travel industry, this new podcast hits all the highlights! The Travel Trends Podcast is where industry leaders converge to share & shape the future. Whether you're an emerging entrepreneur, a seasoned industry executive, or a dedicated travel professional, you’ll be able to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Uncover valuable insights, innovative strategies, and meaningful connections that will elevate your travel business or career to new heights.
Travel Trends with Dan Christian
Company Spotlight: How Agentic AI Is Transforming the Traveler Journey with Dan Flores, Satisfi Labs
What happens when your customers stop “visiting” your website because their AI agents visit for them? That’s the future we explore with Dan Flores of Satisfi Labs, who went from helping grow Maverick Helicopters into a tourism powerhouse to pioneering agent-first customer experiences that sell tickets, qualify MICE leads, and streamline service for destinations, attractions, and tours.
We trace Satisfi’s origins in sports starting with the New York Mets and how fan-centric thinking now powers travel use cases. Dan breaks down the shift from simple FAQ chatbots to specialized AI agents with goals, context, and the ability to take action: a theme park agent that finds the closest chicken nuggets and orders ahead, or a destination agent that captures group details, routes leads by territory, and hands sales teams qualified briefs. We also dig into pricing models, build versus buy considerations, and how bespoke solutions graduate into platform-wide features that benefit the entire industry.
Then we zoom out to the larger disruption reshaping digital behavior: travelers using large language models instead of search. Dan explains why Satisfi rebuilt its website for LLM-friendly indexing and conversational discovery and what an agent-to-agent future looks like, where your personal agent sets preferences, the venue’s agent negotiates options, and a booking confirmation simply appears. We look ahead to voice interfaces, global expansion across Europe and Australia, and how MCP-style gateways could bring structure, attribution, and trust to data access.
You’ll walk away with a clear playbook for getting started: choose one high-value workflow, make your content readable by agents, define OKRs for your AI teammate, and budget for rapid experimentation. This isn’t theory; these are the systems already driving conversions and improving guest experience today.
Watch Dan’s AI Summit demo on our YouTube channel at Travel Trends Podcast.
For more information, visit satisfilabs.com.
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I think that the websites that we're used to seeing today are going to be very different because the audiences are not going to be predominantly human eyes. Right? You still need somewhere for that content to live so that the AI can go and grab it. But you're going to design your contents and you're going to design the websites, really, not necessarily for me and you going on there and experiencing the website the same way that we do now.
SPEAKER_00:Hello everyone and welcome to a special spotlight episode of Travel Trends. This is your host, Dan Christian, and today we're speaking to Dan Flores from Satisfy Labs. Now, a bit of context for our conversation. I first met Dan at the Adventure Travel and Trade Association conference in Panama last year. I'd heard many great things about his presentation, so I was keen to watch his keynote. And it was terrific, very engaging, very informative. I saw a lot of great discussion afterwards. And then I was keen to bring Dan onto my event spotlight that I was recording. And I learned so many interesting things about Satisfy Labs and how they are working in the tourism industry and got to know Dan's background in the tourism industry as well. And since then, we've become great friends. We've seen each other at a number of conferences, and he was also a huge highlight at our AI Summit 2025, our second annual conference. And Dan, Dan and the team at Satisfy Labs were one of our sponsors, but what was most delightful was his presentation, since it was probably by far the most entertaining of the entire conference. Let me set the stage for you. Dan was giving a 15-minute demo of Satisfy Labs, and unfortunately, on the day that he was set to present, he couldn't get into his hotel room. This was something I didn't realize at the time. And the poor guy was stressed about it because he's very conscientious. But what appeared to us when he arrived on the screen was that he was sitting at a jazz club, and uh he was sitting at a lounge table in a jazz club with jazz playing in the background, the sound of drinks being made, and there was no acknowledgement whatsoever from Dan about the setting. He, as a true professional, got on and delivered a really effective presentation, which you have to watch. It's now on our YouTube channel. The audience that was listening at the time was commenting like crazy. We were waiting for Dan to realize because there was many jazz jokes one after another. And at the very end of his presentation, when we thought the big reveal was gonna happen, he looked at his screen and said, Is there any questions? Nope, doesn't look like there is. Thanks everybody. And it was like the most incredible way to deadpan end that presentation. So Dan, hands down, the most engaging and by far the most entertaining presentation at our AI summit, but also incredibly interesting since you gave a terrific overview of Satisfy Labs, which, as a company, I took great inspiration from MLB Digital when I was building up my TGC digital team at the Travel Corporation. And they are one of the early investors in Satisfy Labs, as was Google. This company has more than 700 clients globally. They are very focused on AI, they've been around since 2016. But one of the things you'll see when we speak to Dan, we talk about their website that you have to look at, satisfylabs.com, while we're having this conversation, since they've rebuilt their website entirely for the age of AI, and you can see their classic site if you want to learn more about them, but otherwise interact and engage with their Satisfy Labs answer engine. So they've really put their tech up front. And that's why I was so keen to bring this spotlight episode together, because I've heard more and more clients utilizing Satisfy Labs, having great feedback, and Dan continues to lead the way in the tourism industry, being a terrific keynote speaker, an amazing advocate for AI and travel. So I really wanted to bring him on the Travel Trends Podcast, bring him back to have a dedicated episode. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's bring back Mr. Jazz Hands himself, Dan Flores from Satisfy Labs. Dan, welcome back to Travel Trends. So great to have you with us.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, hey, thanks. Uh anytime I get to chat with you for more than a few minutes, it's it's it's a good day.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, well, I feel the same way. We had such a great time together at the Adventure Travel Trade Association in Panama last year. You gave an amazing uh talk on AI. I was in the crowd and then I heard so many people talking about it. And it's always nice when you uh hear people talking about a talk that you were there for. You're like, I know, wasn't it great? And so there's so much I want to ask you in the conversation, but let's start with your background in travel. Tell everybody where you grew up and how you got into the tourism industry.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I grew up in Las Vegas. Um, and funny enough, did not want to be in the tourism business. Um, my mom was a travel advisor at one point, and then went to work for the Chamber of Commerce and membership for tourism and this the stripping, you know, the biggest economic driver for Las Vegas was surrounded by it. Um and and wanted to be a teacher, actually. Left tracks.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I can see that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, more I wanted to coach baseball, and you wanted to be a gym teacher, yeah. Pretty much. Um but you know, things change, and I I went down the teaching route and discovered I did not like it. Um so cut bait pretty early on and got a tourism job. And within the first God, it must must have been the first month, was absolutely hooked, loved it, and that was 20. I don't want to date myself, but 20 something years ago. What is that first job?
SPEAKER_00:Were you a guide?
SPEAKER_02:No, I actually I worked for I worked at the Bellagio Hotel and then went to Walters Golf. Uh it was a golf company that like honestly their biggest driver for business was tourism, and they needed someone to be uh a salesperson, business development for them. And I went there uh and loved it, like absolutely loved it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, one of the things I know from your background being in Vegas, um, and one of the biggest tours and attractions in Vegas is helicopter tours. Yeah, so that was like, and I remember learning this when I was at Google Travel. I was just blown away at how much spend that helicopter companies had in Las Vegas on travel and uh on keywords, and what a big big business it was, because that's also part of your background as well. So terrible one, okay. So you started with Bellagio, you're in hotels, then next thing you know, you're in golf and you're learning this whole hospitality. Uh, where'd you go from there?
SPEAKER_02:To Maverick Helicopters.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so that was the next step.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and and uh interesting enough, I didn't like to fly. Um, first of all, so people in my life uh were thought that was pretty funny. Um but the owner of Maverick uh and and the Maverick president I I'd met, and you know the owner owner famously said anyone that can sell$300 golf during the summertime in Las Vegas can probably sell anything. Um and I I thought it was a really cool product. Uh I've always been in my life been about storytelling and really enjoyed when companies told their story well. And I thought Maverick Helicopters had an incredible story. And I went to work there for 16 and a half years.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, who would have thought that, right? Because I knew that was a big part of your background. I wasn't sure if there was anything else in between, but all of a sudden that was uh a very much obviously a career-defining moment for you. That's when you really honed your expertise in tourism. And I know you were the VP of business development there, but clearly that business tell us a little bit about I mean that's like 2007 to 2023, right? That's just like that's a huge amount of time in your life and uh to see a business uh grow and evolve over that. So tell everyone out of interest sake a bit about Maverick helicopters. I know you're not there anymore, but still like the type of business they were operated and then how you grew and scaled that.
SPEAKER_02:It was a helicopter sightseeing business. Um family run, started really what I thought was a really cool story. Um and yeah, it went from one helicopter in 1996 to uh at our high point. Uh we had 50 helicopters, six airplanes, and businesses uh in multiple states. It was uh an incredible ride, uh honestly, not to pun uh you up there, but we really took flight. Yeah, yeah, we were on the rise. Um but yeah, I I I mean I really learned a ton about tourism there, and the Maverick family gave me the opportunity to just explore. I started a lot of the new channels and markets for them, and it was all because I'm a kind of a curious individual, anyways, and went, well, what about this? What about that? I want to I want can I go do this? And they gave me the freedom to do that, and the the company's still thriving. They just opened up a California location, and that team is is very good at what they do.
SPEAKER_00:And I know they do helicopters, and Maverick for me was always Top Gun that came out in like '86. Uh I know that because my brother was obsessed with Top Gun, and my son now is actually on his path to becoming a pilot. And so was the connection between uh the help Maverick actually Top Gun? No. Or is that the family name?
SPEAKER_02:No, no, it's it's it's actually neither. Um that's what everyone thinks. It's like the Top Gun thing. And I'll I'll tell this story quick because I it's like a it's like an old muscle I like to flex every once in a while. Um the Greg Rocknow is the owner of Maverick, uh, was working doing uh helicopter tours in Las Vegas, had a bunch of ideas uh that didn't work out for the company that he was was at. And the guy said that it's because you're a Maverick and you want to do things your own way, and he was like, he had some really bold ideas about the service levels and safety levels. And he when he was thinking about what to do, they they named the company Maverick Helicopters. Yeah, that's because they were gonna do it a little bit different than it had been done in the past, and that philosophy let the company grow, uh the employees grow over that same time because they were doing it a little bit different, which I thought was a really good story. Um from a sales point of view, I was like, oh, I can tell that. That sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, most op entrepreneurs have to be Mavericks, and I guess that's one of the things I liked about the character in the film was that name, because you know, just if you were to write a script and then figure out what is the name of that character, you'd probably describe that character as a maverick. You know, so that that term I really like the branding of Maverick, and that's why I was curious to know the origin story. But obviously, you decided to leave Maverick to join Satisfy Labs, and obviously that was for sure the right decision. The success trajectory you've now had with Satisfy Labs over the last few years has been immense, and obviously it's still growing. I mean, there's um more and more companies are coming on board with Satisfy Labs, and I know you head up all the tourism activity, but tell us what inspired you to join Satisfy Labs, and then I'm obviously keen to make sure that all our audience knows what Satisfy Labs is and what you guys do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the I I was doing a lot of work for Maverick on connectivity um and distribution, you know, at a tie point. And my in learning about API connections and learning about uh distribution and connectivity, and I I had this feeling always in the back of my head, I'm like, if I do this really, really well, I'm gonna connect myself out of a job. And and I I saw some things from the industry that really was showing signs that in five, ten years, a position like the one that I had would not be needed. So looking at that, going, how do okay, well, like I have a family, I gotta figure this out. And that was like, okay, well, tech is going to drive any industry, but especially the tourism industry moving forward.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I started dipping my toes in, doing some like consulting work on tourism for uh tech companies, and really started getting curious and listening to a lot of different podcasts. Go figure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like travel trends. But it it it was kind of driving um this curiosity that I have of like, I need to do something different. And also I was getting older and I was like, can I still learn a new skill? I you know, that maverick muscle after 16 years, like like I could keep doing this. Uh, but but I honestly thought this was gonna be the future and was lucky to find Satisfy Labs, or we were put together essentially.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, that's so this is where a company like Satisfy Labs, you've got a very well-established client base now, and it continues to evolve because you have expanded in different industries. Clearly, tourism was a major vertical, and having someone like yourself that actually knows the industry, which is why I always find it fascinating to have to learn someone's origin story and why I love doing this podcast so much. And I think one of the reasons we get on so well is like that when you connect with someone based on having that uh background and expertise, and there's a passion for the industry and the subject matter, and then you find all these different ways that our industry is evolving, and especially from a commercial point of view with the different technology. I mean, that so like the fact you're talking about connectivity when companies that operate these trips have to find ways not only to uh integrate but then distribute through all these different platforms, and people are not only you know searching on Google, now they're obviously using AI, which we'll talk about. And like so the consumer journey is always changing, and any successful business needs to continually adapt to that. So uh let's now talk about the origin story for Satisfy Labs. So, even before you joining, give us a bit of an overview of the company and where it started.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it actually started uh well, there's a couple stories, but uh it started as a restaurant kind of tool for essentially like discovery, but they they quickly got rid of that. And uh the New York Mets were the first client, and our co-founders were like, there has to be a better way to get information that's easier than the way it's being done right now. And the thought was chatbots just aren't that good. So can we figure out a way to do this a little bit better? And it it's it's funny because I really love this this story too, because it was a glimpse back then in 2016 into the future of where we're gonna go, and I I know we'll touch on that in a little bit, but their thing was why why do chatbots not have enough information to like help me? And it was because you couldn't put that much information into you know what we call like the knowledge volumes of chatbots back then. So their idea was oh, we'll we'll create specific assistance based on the topics, the in what we call it, the intent. And that meant like, oh, we would have a knowledge container for parking, for ticketing, for food and beverage. And they just they're like, okay, that works. There's this like napkin drawing of like these really poorly drawn robots, and you know, they were like, okay, what what else do we have to solve? Well, we have to understand what the person's looking for first. So they built their own NLP system. Now, fast forward to where we're at now, uh, they went down the sports vertical, and now we're getting more into like the agentic side of things, but I love it because it's back to that original thing of like you should have specialized agents now that have tasks and and can go down those specific routes and know a lot about those subjects and do things for you. But it's kind of cool how like the you it went back to almost the original idea.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, and and the other thing I think is really interesting, the connectivity between sports, entertainment, and tourism, those three kind of major verticals. And I know that uh starting in the sports, major league baseball was one of the original investors, Google as well, Techstars. The thing that started to me about Major League Baseball, I actually used them as a source of inspiration when I was the chief digital officer of the travel corporation and created TTC Digital was based on the idea of MLB Digital and this very progressive idea that they had, which was every team kicks in at that point, a million dollars, and they manage the website centrally for all of these baseball teams, and they manage ticketing. And that company has been such an incredible success story based in New York that there was talk for a while that Apple would buy them. And um, and so the fact that an organization like that sees what you're doing with Satisfy Labs is a great validation. So, knowing you got the sports, the entertainment side, where did tourism? So, going back, I guess, 2016, you know, you joined in 2023. When did Satisfy Labs kind of move into the tourism space? Was that with you being appointed, or was they they're already in that space and you came on to really elevate that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, it was a natural progression, right? Because uh a sports game, uh it's an experience, right? Whether you're a local or it's a great experience.
SPEAKER_00:I'm a big baseball fan.
SPEAKER_02:I am too. Uh I'm a big Dodger fan. Coming off of last year winning the World Series. But um and and tourism is experience, whether that's a destination that you're going to experience or a tour company that you're gonna you know do an experience with. So they they had they had full like fallen into some experience-driven uh tourism clients where like oh they found them, or you know, vice versa, and they they started going down that route. I I've been in travel a long time, so have you, Dan. Uh we like our own that understand our verticals and we understand tourism, and there was some uh the speed of adoption of clients wasn't the same speed that they saw with entertainment and um on the sports side, but they had had people that were ingrained in those industries. And the CEO said, Okay, I need someone that speaks travel tourism to really take this, and it was the growth vehicle for the company moving forward. So we were put together through a mutual friend, and I said, Ah, I know tourism. And he said, Well, I can teach you a lot about the tech and figure that out, but we don't know this side. And I said, Ah, I'm I'm in.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's interesting, even within that, because like uh the whole category of tourism. I mean, you know, I know you work with DMOs, destination management uh organizations, uh, you work with tour operators, and this is where you know your background not only with uh pro sports, but like college athletics and working with attractions. That's a whole other side of tourism, is like working with attractions. So tell us a bit about the journey in terms of the technology platform because you started out with this AI chat functionality, which was this whole kind of 24-7 multilingual, like obviously it increases conversions and it's you know, it reduces cost, it gives customers what they need. And we're seeing so many examples of that today of companies that have implemented AI chatbots. But I know you're not limited to that, but that's one of the core areas of where the business started. But now your positioning for Satisfy Labs is very much around uh AI agents and this whole agentic AI era that we're you know, many people are still trying to wrap their head around, but that's absolutely where we are today and where we're headed in the future. Um, so tell us a little bit about that evolution of technology from where you guys started to where you are today, and then we'll talk about where you guys are headed.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh well, I mean, back in 2016, 2017, big Excel documents with questions and answers, uh managing the content manually, uh really having to, but that was the that was the way we had to do things back then. So as we were moving forward, we still wanted them to do things, but it was like API integrations into ticketing companies so that within that major league baseball team, you could buy. Buy a ticket. Um, as we kept kind of evolving, those integrations were were really vertical specific. And that's why it was like, well, let's okay, we have to stay in these lanes, right? So adjacent companies and as as the companies we were working with were doing stuff with tourism as well, it made it made sense for us to go there. And like as the with those integrations, we were already doing stuff like purchases in chat. We were already passing things over with live agents or from the AI agent to live agents. So the next step is that the AI agents actually perform some of these tasks and it's a natural progression for us. We also like there was some stuff that we were like, well, we need to do this to catch up because we had we had legacy tech. And we were like, could we do this to get up and and do this, or do we work a little bit harder to jump and leap forward and be the first ones that are truly out there doing like some agentic stuff in this these industries? So you know that's just a business decision, and we went down that route.
SPEAKER_00:So let's talk about agentic, because I know you've given some great presentations on AI, and I want to make sure that we bring all of our listeners along on the journey around the evolution of the technology, specifically as we moved into generative AI and sort of this first wave where everyone was doing content. But the kind of the missed opportunity that is now being realized is the fact that these LLMs can now act on our behalf. They can reason and they can make decisions, and this whole idea of them operating as an agent and being able to do tasks on our behalf. So it was one thing before for us to use a chat bot and be able to have dialogue and it would give us answers to questions. And that obviously is the content side of it, is like it's prompting, it's responding. But now it can take a big step further. So it's no longer just saying, when is the uh that attraction open? It's like actually booking a ticket for you on your behalf. And I'd love to also talk about a couple of the case studies. I know you work with Ventrata, it's one of your clients, and you worked with them on some voice. And I'm also keen to talk about voice, and um that's I know that's a passion of yours as well. And so uh, but tell us for all of our listeners, give an overview of a Gentec AI and why that's such a game changer for Satisfy Labs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh the the difference between you know a chatbot who just answers questions, a Gentec AI actually performs and has workflows and tasks that it can perform for you. And where I think that this is going in the future was that like my my AI agent is I'm gonna send it out to let's say find Dan and I, because Dan and I are gonna hang out, two tickets to this particular sports game, and we want to pay you know less than$200 per ticket, and we want it to be this particular series. As that's out there doing that, that eventually it'll talk to the agent for the Dodgers or for the Mets or you know what whatever team that we choose. And they would perform that task together. One agent would buy from the other agent and then it would bring it back to me and say, hey, you know, this is it. I think that that's where the like this is this is going to. But it's the fact that these these chat bots, I'm doing quotes with my fingers, um, can actually do more than just you know respond back to you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I'm gonna uh point out a sports use case and then we'll bring it back to travel, which is you know, when you're looking for tickets to a sports game, and I always buy resale tickets, and uh simply because I always want the flexibility of being able to grab tickets on the day, and I've figured out my own system of like the right time of the day to buy tickets, even on the day of a game where you know prices fluctuate. And the reality is I've now figured my own way to kind of game the system of how I expect the pricing to fluctuate and I decide when I'm gonna strike. I would rather have an AI agent just do that on my behalf, so I don't have to spend the time going back and checking the app and making sure it is playing out the way I expect it, and then knowing when those prices drop like an hour before a game, in my instance, because it's often baseball games that I'm going to, is I'll grab distress tickets that someone dumps with an hour left to go, and I won't worry about it all day until and every once in a while that doesn't work out. So every once in a while the prices start rising when I think they're gonna drop. Um, but nine times out of ten, that logic applies. And so, but I would rather have an AI agent do that on my behalf. Just tell the AI agent, this is what I'm willing to pay, this is where I want to sit, and and let me know when it the the it's pulled the trigger for me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, give it give it the rules, yeah, and and send it on its way. It's like the it's like gaming like uh remember in the air on the airlines when uh we knew back in the day that they were changing prices, so like the best time to look would be like Tuesdays, you know, at like certain times of the day. Uh and dynamic pricing took that uh totally away. But yeah, and in and that you would give the rule sets of what you want it to go do, and then it would go do it. Yeah, um that's very plausible, and that's uh it's doable today. Yeah, um, is it a little clunky right now? Yeah, it is, but it's it's it's as it's at the worst it's ever going to be.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's always a good perspective to keep uh with AI. But tell us with the AI agents that you've built so far, with this idea that they can operate like high-performing team members, so you know, moving away from generic chat bots to much more specialized AI agents that are designed specifically for these types of use cases. Tell us about one or two examples of those that you guys have built for clients or are underway at the moment.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh I'll I'll share a couple of examples. Uh like a food and beverage agent that let's you we'll use a theme park for an example that could actually place orders for you, know where you are, you could give it some parameters like my daughter only eats chicken nuggets, like where's the you know, and and and then it would go and and find that and maybe even pre-purchase something for you. Like there's there's a lot of different things. Uh we actually run them and build them on like the OKR system. It has certain objectives, and then there's key results to each one of those on the destination side, like a meetings and convention agent that would help you perform tasks like submit RFPs for you, route uh lead qualification. Like I'm asking questions, I have a book a group of a thousand. Uh, I want to do it in San Antonio, and I'm you know, it's giving me back, you know, the different venues that I can do. And then I say I would like to speak to someone, and then has it it route by how you um like territories, those salespeople's hit. And it takes the conversation, gives it to you, and now we've qualified that lead. Those are those are doable today. And again, just like anything else, this is the worst version that it's going to be. And like as it moves forward, we're gonna be able to add more and more um tasks that it can do.
SPEAKER_00:One of the big conversations that I know companies are having is this buy versus build, and it's the question when they're now in the AI era, there's not a lot of solutions that have been fit for purpose with AI. And you know, when we were wind back at the start of our careers when we were building websites for travel and then ultimately doing digital marketing and then introducing things like live chat, which live chat used to be operated by an agent, and then it could be operated and like and then fast forward to this age of agentic AI. Um, one of the things that continually changes is the business model. So, of course, you know, many of the technology companies operate with a SaaS model, software as a service, for anyone who's not familiar. Um, and I know that's the journey that Satisfy Labs was on with the chat bot to have a SaaS type model. Uh but tell us a little bit about how that relates to the agentic AI era. And the reason I'm specifically asking that is that I think a lot of organizations are getting interested to know is that model still apply? And then how does it work in these use cases? Because one of the things that many organizations are trying to figure out is developing an application that'll meet your needs. And so as you're solving for these different use cases, but the beauty of a business like Satisfy Labs is as you solve that for one client, you can roll out that technology for multiple clients. And that's part of the you know, the SaaS license model is you can it can continually get enhanced as you pay your licensing. So tell us a little bit about the pricing model for Satisfied Labs, especially in the world of agentic AI.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean it we are a a SaaS model company, uh you know, subscription-based, and that is working right now. Um I I is it will be like that uh a year from now? I I honestly don't know. And it it works for us today, and that is the model we we solve a problem that you know this agent can go do, and hopefully that's a problem that multiple clients want to keep solving, so then we scale at that point. Um, and the model's working today from a pricing standpoint, but I I I truly don't know. And we get asked all the time, I'm like, well, we have all these different partners, are you gonna take a piece of the tickets that you sell or are you gonna do this? And I don't know. You know, it's it's that it's we talk about it, but we're not changing the way we do things right now.
SPEAKER_00:Um I guess that's uh the SAS model works and the usage-based approach often is the most appropriate, just given how much bandwidth you take up and how much utilization it requires. I guess one of the things that I was uh keen to understand in that question is around the idea of customizing for different applications. So when you are working with a client that sees what you can do for someone else, they may have a slightly different feature set that they're interested in. So, how does it work when in terms of bespoke development, I suppose, when companies come to you and say, you know, I see you did this with a DMO or a tour operator? And that's where I find it interesting about your business because you continue to expand into new categories. Um, so I presume your team is solving those, but they they end up being kind of bespoke developments that then become solutions for other partners. And yeah, how does that work, I guess, with the agentic AI world? Are you bringing on new clients that are coming to you to say, I know you can do this, but can you do that? Because this is what we need.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we call them the what if conversations, you know, it's like, well, what if it did this and what if it did that? Um yeah, and look, we we do have a essentially like a professional services team that does custom work that you can option. And some of our bigger partners uh that we have on the you know truly enterprise clients, yeah, they utilize that team a lot. Um you know, the the general pricing model is a you have some flexibility in the way that we do things. We are a platform and we're not built on top of any of the the large language models. We plug them into the platform to do the things that we need them to do, and we have multiple, but yeah, it that that team does a lot of really cool work. And if we see that that cool work can then be scaled, we will take that and then you know push it out at mass. If it's not, it's just really cool work for that client.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's part of it's evident for me is the positive feedback I hear from other clients. And you often you know can tell quite quickly when you work in an industry, especially like tourism, because it is a very relationship-based industry, as you well know, and word gets around very quickly if a solution is not fit for purpose. And when it is fit for purpose, people tell other people and they refer business to you and say, You should speak to Dan. I saw Dan present at this and he works with these guys, and it's absolutely the solution for you. So um when you've come up against why Satisfy Labs over any of your competitors, what are some of the things you instantly point out uh based on your experience, your profile, uh, as to why people do or should work with Satisfy Labs?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I think the the first thing I always point back to is we have a lot of experience in this. A lot of the competition that we're going up against right now have started their companies in the last year to two years. And it doesn't mean that they don't put out good products. Absolutely. I see some great new startup companies that are out there right now. We do have nine years of experience of consumer behavior for experience-driven hospitality companies. We rely on that a lot. We've also made a lot of mistakes. Um, I I look at this now as like we've learned a lot of what not to do. Um you know, so it that's that's a big key thing uh to always point back to. Like, we have a lot of experience in this, we we know what to do right, we know what we've done wrong, so we won't do that again. Um, and then all of the the verticals that we're in, because they are all somewhat of an experience, we can look at other industries and pull things for that where it's like, hey, this did really well in sports at converting ticket sales. Let's take that role over to tourism and see if it works there too.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Or, you know, client on the tourism side says, Hey, we want to solve this, and we're like, ah, we've already done that with this collegiate sports team. We've already done that with this type of client, so we already know how to do it. And that's a big key for us.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. And I guess that's where you know, 2026 and beyond where you're headed with Satisfy Labs and the technology stack that you've built. Uh, I'm very keen to know within tourism, given that it is obviously the largest part of our audience because it's the B2B travel podcast, but the the people that work in the travel industry space, where are you seeing the best utilizations of agentic AI with Satisfy Labs? You know, we've mentioned DMOs and tour operators, and those are traditionally sectors that are way behind in terms of technology and need to catch up. Uh, where are you seeing as the real growth opportunities?
SPEAKER_02:I think it's from uh a ticket conversion and and ticket sales. Um, who's doing it really well utilizing our platform right now? There's a number of clients uh that are out there. The one that's interesting to me as far as like is the destination space because they don't sell anything. Um but they're starting to kind of dip their toes into like can we funnel sales into our community, into our tourism partners, our hotels. Um I think we're keen because of all the ticketing integrations and stuff that we've already done uh to help with that and the partners that we already do have. So there's a lot there's a lot of space there.
SPEAKER_00:With the global expansion, because one of the things that I had seen earlier this year is the number of companies that were at European conferences, for example, that were American companies looking to expand internationally. And so with Satisfy Labs, you've got such a strong footprint in the US market. How what other markets are you looking at? What are kind of the most compelling opportunities for growth given that we have listeners in 125 countries? So not only keen for them to know where Satisfy Labs can play a role, but also what markets you're specifically focused on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the the European markets for sure. Um Australia uh has been a bit of a hotbed lately for us. Uh I think there's a pretty big curiosity for AI over there at the moment. Um I see those two as the the mature European markets um in Australia.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's it's it's interesting when you mention Australia because I when I lived in Australia, one of the things that always used to get mentioned to me was that Australia is about a year, year and a half behind everywhere else. And interestingly, like they've caught up quick. I guess this is more like 10 years ago when that statement was more true. There are more and more technology companies there, and obviously Australians are one of the biggest outbound travelers. And it is one of the markets that that's flourishing. Uh as Australians continue to travel with uh a strong economy and uh and they travel greater distances, like they go to they go to Europe and they go away for a month at a time. So each of these different markets has their unique factors. I guess when you are presenting Satisfy Labs and specifically highlighting where AI is going, that's the other thing I wanted to get into with you, Dan, because you know you've done a lot of thought leadership on this now. A lot of people look to you for your views on AI. What are some of the things that still it makes me laugh? No, but it's it's it's um but you're a practitioner and that uh people see you uh as a go-to because you're implementing these solutions, they want to understand how they work and what benefits the customers are seeing, and you can speak from experience that. So, like I think that is, you know, there's the practical aspect, but I also want to talk about what your views are on on where we're headed. So when you talk about AI at these conferences, what are the things that you're focusing on to try and educate the tourism community about the use of it? Obviously, agentic, that's like almost brings us right back to that. That's where we are today. But where do you think you know we're headed in the next 12 to 18 months?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh, I mean, we've we've been talking about this a lot lately. Uh from a from an industry standpoint, like where where does this go? And um the the use of large language models is moving faster than anything we've ever seen. And as it starts to creep into our everyday lives, it's it's changing consumer behavior, it's changing how we search and discover things, it's changing a ton. And you know, I've built myself agents that I probably talk to too much. Um and the I started to notice that it started for work, it started for I I was using it to you know do things like that, where now I'm starting to use it for a lot of stuff in my personal life. I'm starting to use it instead of other tools that I used to use. And I think moving into the future, we're we're gonna be in a much different place sooner than everyone thinks. Of traditionally, like, oh, I want to go to Google and I'm gonna find a website and then I'm gonna search that website to then find information. That's putting a whole lot of work on me. Knowing that, like I'm starting to do so many other things within the large language models, that is going to be a big piece moving forward. And I think that the websites that we're used to seeing today are gonna be very different because the audiences are not going to be predominantly human eyes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02:You still need somewhere for that content to live so that the AI can go and and and and grab it, but you're gonna design your content and you're gonna design the websites, really, not necessarily for for me and you going on there and experiencing the website the same way that we do now. That's coming way faster than we think. And a perfect example is if you go to the Satisfy Labs website right now. We I was talking about this a lot, and we were like, we should probably do it ourselves first, and our team, you know, to their credit, put this out rather quick, and it's it's pretty cool. Um, I think that's this stuff is cool and it's moving faster, and we're gonna see a lot of changes because you most people don't even know that they're using some form of generative AI.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, it's obviously I had noticed that you guys are leading by example in preparing for a discussion, checking out the website, which is now built for conversations, but it's also built to be indexed by LLMs, which is this big question about who are websites for in the future. Is it for a user or is it for uh your AI agent to be able to go and gather information? And all indications are the latter. So websites going away. Some people still don't believe that's the case, um, but more and more evidence suggests. That's exactly what's happening when people are using AI mode in Google. Obviously, this whole SEO industry is being turned on its head, and some people are saying that is only going to take a year before most people are using AI search rather than a traditional search engine. And therefore, your website no longer serves the same customer journey purpose that it did before. And you just need to make sure that when someone's typing into an LLM to find the AI company to work with in tourism or destination management, that they find satisfy labs because your platform talks to their LLM and provides that information back to you or to your AI agent. So the part I want to get into on this topic, Dan, is voice. Because when you guys started as live chat, and that chat, I guess it makes me laugh when I think of chat being type. And I just think as a um as a as a species, we are we're having a conversation right now. We're relying on voice. And it's one of the some people may argue that uh reading can be faster for some people to process information, but it really depends if you're an auditory learner or a visual learner. Um, but there's no question that it uh voice is one of the best ways for us to be able to communicate. And obviously that's like it's written on our DNA and it's part of how we've evolved as a species. Uh and voice carries a lot more sentiment than the written word or the typed word, which is why people get in like get themselves wound up about seeing a post or a text message because it gets taken out of context, or someone used all caps by accident, they weren't actually screaming. Um, but there's any number of ways that we've had to adapt to a world of text messaging. What I'm really excited about with AI is we get our voice back. So, like, literally, one of the things I want to spend more time talking about is that we get our voice back in the age of AI. We can talk to our AI agent, our AI agent can talk to us, and I no longer have to write as many emails or post things in the way that I used to, and I can just ask. And I do it all the time with my smartphone, so I'm an Apple user. And one of my greatest frustrations at the real at the moment is that Apple has not really invested in AI and their features are way behind. And you know, everything they do is in partnership with ChatGPT, and I love ChatGPT, but I just say cut Siri out of the equation because anytime I ask my smartphone, all Siri asks me is do you want me to use Chat GPT for that? And every time I'm like, always, just from now on, always. Like let's just make that the default setting because Siri, you don't seem to be able to when I ask Siri a question and she comes back um and says, I found this on the web, and I'm driving in the car, and it's or like I'm like, this is not useful right now. I don't now want to go from voice to reading, I don't want to now read a web page, and it just and that's current technology. And so I'm I've I'm so frustrated with that that I just want to move to voice. And I speak to just when you're like, I speak to Chat GPT all the time, and when I have questions or I'm working on things, or if I'm driving, and I'm like, and I'm not saying I have conversations or seek therapy from Chat GPT, although people do that as well. I'm not dating any AI agents that I know of at the moment. Um, but I find it as a great resource for information at any given time by asking for it. So, my big question, I guess, Dan, is where voice is headed and where that applies with Satisfy Labs. If more and more customers are gonna be finally finding their voice again and asking your platform to do things like buy tickets. What's your view on on the future with uh AI and voice and Satisfy Labs' role in that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's uh interesting topic because uh the I use my voice mode on Chat GBT all day. Um probably too much. Uh but uh where this is like where is this going, how important voice is gonna be, and where satisfy sits in that things, we're not sure yet. Um we're getting a lot of questions from clients on like, hey, can you do this with voice? And we're like, okay. Like our any new feature that is done on on a satisfy last platform is because our clients in a specific protocol have asked for that. Sure. So three or four months ago, we did hire uh a new team that has a lot of uh voice experience. So it I mean, we're definitely looking into it and we're definitely seeing where this sits and what we can do with it. Uh we don't have anything specific that we're rolling out right now, but it yeah, it's it's really interesting to see what those qualities are. And there's cool companies out there right now that we're doing some partnership stuff with um that are in the voice in the voice game. So yeah, much much to come.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, tell us so, even beyond voice then, too, Dan, some of the things that you guys are focused on that you see coming in the near future, because companies like yourselves that are quick to adapt to change, um, rise to the opportunity. So, like, as you just highlighted, like that, as customers are asking for that, you're now expanding the team, you're bringing on additional resources, you're gonna figure a way to solve it. Um, tell us about some of the other things that you're hearing from customers or some of the ways you anticipate the customer experience to change within the age of AI. And obviously, feel free to you know expound beyond just uh uh satisfy labs in terms of your views as to where this industry is headed with this technology as it relates to tourism specifically.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the big big cool question. Um AI is gonna dominate our lives. And the fact that travel thinks that it can sit back and that it's oh it's not it's we're travel, it's different. It's not the consumer behavior is is changing dramatically. And I I'm actually a little I'm kind of proud of some of the the tourism industry because we've really kind of taken on and people are learning really fast. But we're hard to do that at scale in tourism because the the fragmentation, a lot of like small entrepreneur businesses, especially on the attractions and activity side, uh the multi-day size, you know, very similar. I I think it's gonna change everything. It's gonna change our distribution models, it's gonna change our where we find our customers, where our customers find us. There's a lot that has to go on. I think that without getting too deep in the weeds on like A-A technology and MCP servers and what they do, but we're in a really interesting time. And I think that moving moving forward it with the mind of like we don't know exactly where all this is going to land, and I need to be curious and doing the things like from an investment side of including AI in all of that is the most important thing that tourism can do. Any vertical. That's that's hotels, that's you know, it's it's all going to change because consumers are finding things different, or they're not, right? Or they're using these queries for the agents that are very, very specific and personalized to me, which gives it weeds out a ton of people in that in that equation, right? So, like, is that gonna make it harder to find things? Am I gonna get stuck in more of uh an echo chamber of only the things that I like because my agent knows? I find things all the time that I didn't think I would like, and then I do them, and I'm like, I really like that. Yeah, you know, so is my agent gonna have to like am I gonna have to prompt it with that? Like, don't give me the things that I always like. Yeah. Um, but I I I think we really have to press on the tourism side of the business to really start innovating.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Budget that way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Of you know, I'm I'm encouraging people to have like a an AI slush budget added to the budget so that I don't know what it's for yet.
SPEAKER_00:Experimentation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like innovation budget where you just like can buy a cool new product and see if it works. Like I think you're gonna have to do that. And right now, planning three years in advance is impossible.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You bring up something, uh a key word in prompt, and obviously that entered uh our nomenclature, this idea of being a prompt engineer, you know, that kind of broke onto the scene last year. And those people who are better at prompting LLMs. I think the interesting thing in the future is we talk about agentic AI is personalization. And if anything, that prompt can be reversed because AI agentic AI tools can prompt you when it recognizes there's an opportunity you might be interested in. So flip that around that it knows that I like baseball or it knows that I'm looking through a trip to Europe. And it's like you can have multiple agents working on your behalf at any time. And I guess this is the like uh the swarm of AI agents that have that with satisfy labs and your plans for agentic AI, that'll be one of several or dozens of AIs that agentic AIs the consumers use that have but have they they all have very specific use cases, and then this whole other topic of how they talk to each other to be able to kind of satisfy ultimately whoever the master is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What say again? Yeah, I see I see what you did there with the uh the satisfy the Yeah, well, you see?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like uh I'm glad I'm the name is future-proof. That's right. That's where I was going with that. It's just like you can satisfy all of these requests. Yes. Um tell us how you guys are planning with this whole MCP and working with different agentic AIs, how your team is looking at that, because I'm sure that's going to be a part of the equation. Is that they have this agentic AI for this purpose, and they have your agentic AI for another purpose, and how do they then talk to each other?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's uh right now we're building them internally for for ourselves because we we have integrations into lots of companies, so it's it's making those easier and giving the tools to access the information from multiple uh data systems, right? Uh at the same time and in real time. Moving forward, these the attribution models are gonna have to change because large language models are grabbing stuff off the internet, and there's certain companies that are going, hey hey, hey, hold on. We need to know what you're what you're doing. Um and when agents are out there doing that, MCP A to A technology gives a really good way to because we're gonna block crawling. You have to come in this way, so then I know that you came through.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Essentially, it's like a like a data turnstile, right? Like, you know, oh I I know that you came and got this information, and whatever those attribution models like turn into, I I don't we we don't know yet. But yeah, I think that's a real kind of future because there's there's companies out there right now that aren't super happy that they're grabbing this content and this stuff for free. Sure, absolutely and not telling them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02:And there's no way for them to report on the you know, so yeah, we're we're using them internally. We are looking at, you know, for some of our clients of of getting into that um you know, for them as well. It we're not talking publicly a ton about it at the moment, but uh, we do think that is the future, and we are working on uh we've got a bunch already on for ourselves, and moving forward, you know, we will be probably providing them for our clients.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's exciting. And uh Dan, obviously, you're staying very much ahead of the curve, and I you know I always look forward to seeing you at the big conferences and and learning everything that's happening with Satisfy Labs. I want to make sure that all of our listeners uh can connect with you to be able to not only see your LinkedIn post, for example, and your updates, um, but tell everyone some of the big conferences you're gonna be at in 2026, what some of the platforms are for best for people to connect with you and learn more about Satisfy Labs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, look, I I always love seeing you, Dan. Um hopefully we can grab a drink later or something. Uh for sure. But yeah, 2026, you know, that it's it we'll be at a lot of different destination uh events, uh a lot of US travel events, uh some ATTA events, um our our sports and entertainment team will be at a lot of events uh on on that side. We've got probably 50 plus planned for next year. Um and I'll be I'll be speaking at a handful of them um on multiple topics. Uh uh one of the conferences I'm speaking at um at the beginning of of 2026 asked me for uh an outline of what I was gonna talk about, and I I said I I have no idea. This stuff's moving so fast. I I I don't want I don't want to put anything down on paper. Um I guess so yeah, there'll be a lot of different ways. LinkedIn's a good way to to get a hold of me. Um I I tend to respond to a lot of those messages. Uh and uh so yeah, like there, or you can contact me through the the website of Satisfy Labs. Fantastic. So it's more on a professional level where you want to see what we do and book a demo of what Satisfy Labs can do for you. If it's just personal stuff, you want to talk tourism, hit me up on LinkedIn for sure. Awesome, that's great.
SPEAKER_00:And it's Dan Flores, F-L-O-R-E-S. That's right. And uh I appreciate you staying connected to everything that's happening in the industry. Obviously, I know you're uh a big fan of our podcast, and I thank you very much for that. Obviously, you've been a great uh advocate and supporter for travel trends, and I yeah, I love seeing you speak, and I also just genuinely enjoy our catch-ups. One of the things that Dan and I said to each other when we first sat down to record is that we always run over on our when we schedule a call, it's like 30 minutes, and we run like we don't even cover what we actually intended to talk about because we get into some great conversations about what's happening in the industry, what you're seeing, what I'm seeing, and then we're like, oh, we'll have to reschedule a call to actually book about what we're gonna talk about.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I started blocking the time behind it um so that we could actually talk about the the subject of the call first and give us some time to catch up. But uh yeah, it's always yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it's a real joy to speak to you, Dan. And I'm like, I'm definitely want to have you back on the podcast. I definitely want to continue our collaborations. I just want to encourage everyone uh to check out Dan Flores' demo that he gave us at the AI Summit, a V2 that was recorded at the end of October in 2025. It was an amazing session, and I really wanted him to do a demo for the exact reason I mentioned in this podcast recording is because he is a great speaker and he actually provides really actionable advice. So I encourage you to go to YouTube, check out that clip of Dan, and obviously check out satisfylabs.com and reach out to Dan for uh future guidance in this space. And yeah, thanks again for our friendship and uh look forward to seeing you again at the next conference and and to continue to cheer you on and see your continuous success.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you as well, Dan. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks so much for joining us for this special spotlight episode of Travel Trends. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation with Dan Flores from Satisfy Labs. I found it fascinating to get more around the backstory of Satisfy Labs and also where they're headed in the future, since they've been leading the way with AI, and that's such an important conversation that every travel company is having today about their business and their future. It's why we created the AI Summit in the very first place, last year and then again this year. And that's why it was such a delight to have Dan Flores give such an amazing presentation at our conference, which I strongly encourage now that you've had a chance to meet him and get to know the company, to watch his presentation on our YouTube channel at Travel Trends Podcast. If you want to find out more information about Satisfy Labs, check out their website, satisfylabs.com, and you can always find and follow Dan Flores on LinkedIn to see where he's speaking and sharing some of his updates. Thanks again to Dan, the team at Satisfy Labs for this collaboration, and I wish you guys all the success in 2026. And I look forward to staying in touch and having you guys involved at our next AI summit. And thanks again to all of our listeners. We appreciate you joining us for this spotlight episode. We have a whole collection of incredible spotlight episodes under Travel Trends Podcast.com slash spotlights, where you can learn about industry executives, companies, even destinations, and various custom series we've been developing with partners like Travel Zoo, Deloitte, Mind Trip, and others. So check out more details there and make sure that you are subscribed on the streaming platform of your choice on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget, we do post clips and highlights on our social channels, which you can find on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram at Travel Trends Podcast. Until next time, safe travels.
