The Amadeus Trav-Tech Hackathon 2025 closed on September 16 in Bangkok, Thailand with 11 teams from across the Amadeus ecosystem pitching agentic AI-driven solutions designed to solve some of the industry’s most persistent pain points.

The competition underscored a major theme: the arrival of “agentic AI” – systems that not only generate outputs but act autonomously to interpret policy, validate decisions, and execute bookings.

“Developers from our client network were given access to Amadeus’ Self-Service APIs, combined with Google Cloud’s AI offerings such as Gemini models, Agent Engine on Vertex AI, and the Agent Development Kit, along with optional tools like Langgraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, and Python agents – a very powerful combination,” said Ramona Bohwongprasert, senior vice president – Southeast Asia, inside sales & startups APAC at Amadeus.

Bohwongprasert added that teams were selected from Amadeus’ clientele across the travel ecosystem to showcase diverse representation of customer and travel agency types – and that agentic AI can be applied anywhere in the industry.

“We saw very clearly the OTAs, but we also wanted business travel and leisure travel involved too. For example, AsiaOneClick is a travel provider focused on helping us to meet the needs of the SME segment. We tried to ensure a variation to demonstrate 360 degrees of the challenges, yet also more opportunities and how we can use tech from Amadeus and Google to help,” she shared.

After two months of collaboration, groundwork and focused problem-solving, teams of developers from the offices of Amadeus clients – many of whom were meeting in person for the first time – had just one day to collaborate in person and refine their final presentations before stepping in front of an expert jury that included executives from Amadeus and hackathon partner Google.

Entries spanned the gamut from voice bots to automated policy validation tools for corporate travel, with teams demonstrating how agentic AI can anticipate disruptions, recommend and implement solutions, and autonomously orchestrate bookings end-to-end.

Unlike many competitions, the Trav-Tech Hackathon did not offer cash or physical prizes.

Instead, recognition came in the form of titles awarded by judges and peers.

Trip.com emerged as the overall winner with its Click & Go personalised travel assistant, while ClearTrip secured first runner-up with MyTravel.ai, a tool designed to deliver tailored inspiration. Richmond Travels followed as second runner-up with RABBIT, an assistant aimed at simplifying business travel.

The peer-voted Hackers’ Favorite went to AsiaOneClick for its FareSmart AI, an autonomous agent to handle booking inquiries across multiple channels for smaller travel operators.

Jerome Daniel, senior vice president of R&D and head of travel, shopping & reservation at Amadeus – who sat on the judging panel – said the hackathon was designed to showcase Amadeus’ technology investments in partnership with Google, spark discussion, and validate industry direction.

He noted that while all submissions were strong, Trip.com stood out for its innovation, dynamism, and near-market readiness, reaffirming its position as a major player.

“Agentic AI is advancing quickly, but it’s still in its early stages and its direction remains uncertain. What’s clear is that it demands deep knowledge of the travel industry – intelligence without understanding the rules simply won’t work. Amadeus brings that expertise and, together with partners like Google, we can build the ecosystem that will power the travel engine of the future. That’s really what we hope to find (through these events),” he added.

Meanwhile, Bohwongprasert – whose division also mentored the teams – underlined that the event’s true value was networking and knowledge-sharing among agencies facing similar issues. She said the collaboration demonstrated how common challenges can be tackled by pooling expertise across the Amadeus ecosystem.

This was the second Amadeus Trav-Tech Hackathon, following its 2022 debut in Bangalore.

Amadeus executives hinted more editions will follow as the company continues to use collaborative forums to accelerate innovation.