A chatbot can answer a question at eleven at night. Your team still has to deal with the answer at nine the next morning. If the price was invented, the request was misunderstood or the customer has to explain everything again, the work hasn't disappeared. It has moved into the next shift.

Start your search for AI for travel agents with a specific job. You might want visitors to find the right search results, capture a useful brief outside opening hours or get routine questions answered. Write down the job and the point where a person should take over. That gives you a way to judge a demonstration beyond whether the conversation sounds fluent.

Choose the task before the product

AI products serve different parts of an agency. Inspiretec Agent Assist describes turning customer conversations into CRM notes, actions and suggested follow-up for consultants. A website chatbot has a different audience and needs its own checks. Decide whether the problem sits with the visitor, the adviser or both before comparing products that happen to carry an AI label.

Our Luna Chat describes answers from approved knowledge, searches using your booking engine and handover to the team with the conversation attached. Those functions provide useful things to test. They don't remove the need to check your own knowledge, supplier setup and working hours. A capable product still needs a sensible operating process around it.

Ask where each answer comes from

Give the supplier a small set of agency information that you have checked yourself. Include opening hours, contact details and the explanation of a service your team regularly provides. Ask a question with a clear answer in that material, then another that the material doesn't cover. Record whether the assistant recognises the gap and what it does next.

Use a deliberately changed fact during the demonstration. Update the test opening time and ask how the new answer reaches the chatbot. Your team needs to know who approves the change and how quickly older information stops being used. A knowledge source is only useful if someone owns its maintenance.

Avoid treating a confident tone as proof. Ask to inspect the source behind a factual answer and the process for reporting one that is wrong. Travelgenix's Luna Chat trust and safety page describes sourced answers, scheduled rechecks and a process for flagging information it can't ground. Apply that same scrutiny to any product on your shortlist, including ours.

Separate conversation from live availability

A useful description of a holiday doesn't establish that a room or flight can be booked. Test a request with dates, an airport, party details and a budget. Follow the proposed search into the booking journey and check that those details survive. If the customer changes one requirement during the conversation, repeat the check with the new brief.

Use a deliberately unavailable or incomplete request as well. Ask what the chatbot does when it can't produce suitable results. A sensible clarification or handover is more helpful than a plausible price with no booking behind it. Keep the original request beside the results so your team can see exactly what was understood.

Do the exercise with the suppliers your business will actually connect. The presence of an integration in a product catalogue doesn't establish your commercial access or the inventory you will receive. Have the provider explain any credentials or agreements needed for the proposed search. Put those dependencies in the buying decision before promising a particular experience on your website.

Test the handover when nobody is available

Run one conversation while an adviser is available and another when the team is marked offline. Ask for a person in both cases. Check what the visitor sees, where the request lands and whether the full brief reaches the colleague who follows it up. The system should describe the next step accurately without suggesting an immediate response your team cannot provide.

Then try a handover halfway through a more complicated request. Your adviser should be able to identify the customer's latest requirements and any unanswered questions. Have a second colleague pick up the same thread. This exposes whether the process depends on someone remembering a conversation that happened on their own screen.

Give the chatbot an owner and a review routine

Appoint someone to review a sample of conversations and deal with gaps in the knowledge. Keep the first test brief so you can repeat it after a meaningful product or content change. Record the question, expected behaviour and observed result rather than relying on a general impression. Failed tests should lead to a correction and another check before you broaden the chatbot's remit.

Measure the work you can observe. Luna Chat's current product page lists conversation and escalation reporting, but explicitly says it cannot yet attribute bookings or revenue to a conversation. Don't turn a count of chats into a sales claim. Compare the usefulness of captured briefs, the quality of handovers and the effort your team spends correcting answers.

Bring five ordinary customer questions and one awkward one to your next demonstration. Ask the supplier to work through them with your own information, then let the colleague who will manage the inbox take over. The decision should make sense to that person on a busy morning.

Download the chatbot test script