Expedia Grows Revenue 12% to $4.9 Billion as It Prices AI Channels

Expedia Group posted third-quarter revenue of $4.9 billion, up 12% year over year, and raised full-year guidance on gross bookings and revenue while it negotiates the commercial terms of its AI-platform distribution deals.

Net income rose 7% to $1.03 billion, and room nights grew 7%, matching the pace reported by Booking Holdings. The numbers give Expedia room to experiment with Meta's Muse and Google's AI Overviews as new customer acquisition channels — channels whose price has not yet been set.

"The economics of the partnerships are being worked out," CEO Ariane Gorin said on the earnings call Wednesday. "We have a track record of being able to work with big advertising platforms or tech platforms to use them as channels to acquire customers at attractive economics, and that's what I think we'll see."

What do the AI integrations actually change?

Two integrations are in motion. Gorin said an integration with Meta's Muse is imminent, and that Expedia leads in U.S. citation share — a measure of how often AI chatbots name Expedia's brands as a source.

The immediate value is informational rather than commercial. Gorin said the integrations let Expedia learn how AI agents make booking decisions and which customers use them. Her working assumption: travelers who use agentic AI for discovery still want to complete the booking with a trusted brand.

For sellers of travel, the open question is cost. Expedia officials complained in past years about the high price of Google search marketing, and the new AI channels could replicate that dependency — or price more favorably. The terms are not yet fixed, so no one can model the margin impact today.

Where the growth came from

B2B revenue grew 23% year over year to $1.7 billion, far outpacing the 6% growth at consumer brands including Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo. Gorin tied the B2B acceleration to the CarTrawler and Tiqets acquisitions.

That split matters for distribution: Expedia's fastest-growing line is now supplying inventory to partners, not direct consumer marketing.

Guidance up, but Q4 looks softer

Expedia raised full-year gross bookings guidance to 10% growth, up from 8-9%, and revenue guidance to 11-12%, up from 9-10%.

CFO Derek Andersen flagged a deceleration ahead, saying the fourth-quarter environment is softer than the third. He cited disruptions in the Middle East and unrest in some European cities.

The takeaway in plain words: Expedia's core business is growing fast enough to lift guidance, and its next distribution fight — what AI platforms will charge to send it customers — has not yet been priced.