TL;DR
Virgin Atlantic has deployed an AI travel agent called Concierge on its website, developed by UK consultancy Tomoro in partnership with OpenAI. The web chatbot accepts typed or spoken input, can access flight, holiday and loyalty APIs, and currently deep-links to the site for payments while a mobile app with account integration is planned.
What happened
Earlier this month Virgin Atlantic introduced an AI travel assistant, branded Concierge, on its website. The project was created by Tomoro with support from OpenAI and evolved from a six-week proof-of-concept that used OpenAI's real-time speech models while that API was in beta. Concierge accepts both typed and voice interactions (with voice routed through speech-to-text) and is designed as an agent that calls Virgin Atlantic APIs to find flights, plan holidays and answer basic Flying Club and support questions. The public web deployment operates without user authentication, so it currently deep-links users to the airline’s booking pages for payment rather than completing transactions directly. Tomoro says safety and guardrails were a major focus to limit off-topic responses and resist prompt-injection or jailbreak attempts; so far, the team reports no successful jailbreaks. The company is preparing a mobile app integration that would allow persistent itineraries and more direct transaction handling.
Why it matters
- Automates travel planning tasks and could reduce routine call-center volume by handling basic queries.
- Agent-style design shows the importance of reliable tool calling and API access for practical AI assistants.
- Public, unauthenticated deployment raises distinct safety and abuse-mitigation challenges compared with account-linked bots.
- Integration with a mobile app and account IDs could enable persistent itineraries and more personalised service.
Key facts
- The service is called Virgin Atlantic Concierge and is embedded on the airline’s website.
- Development was led by UK AI design consultancy Tomoro in partnership with OpenAI.
- Initial proof-of-concept took roughly six weeks and used OpenAI’s real-time speech-to-speech model during its beta.
- OpenAI’s Realtime API reached general availability in August, after which the project advanced toward public release.
- Concierge accepts typed and spoken input; spoken input takes longer because audio must be converted with speech-to-text.
- The agent has access to Virgin Atlantic’s flight and holiday APIs and can answer basic Flying Club and support questions.
- On the web, Concierge deep-links to Virgin Atlantic’s booking pages for payments rather than completing transactions.
- The system is currently not behind authentication; a mobile app that will connect Concierge to user accounts is in development.
- Tomoro emphasised safety guardrails to handle malicious inputs, off-topic queries and potential jailbreaks; none were reported at launch.
- Tomoro said current operating costs are modest but it expects to explore higher-cost reasoning models for complex itinerary planning.
What to watch next
- Mobile app launch and account integration, which Tomoro says will allow itineraries to persist and enable direct booking.
- Use of reasoning models to improve complex itinerary construction and reduce planning errors involving timing and distances.
- Effectiveness of safety measures against prompt injection and other malicious behaviour as usage scales.
- not confirmed in the source: public adoption metrics and customer satisfaction scores after wider rollout.
Quick glossary
- Agent: An AI system that is granted access to external tools or APIs so it can perform tasks like retrieving data or making bookings.
- Realtime API: An API that supports low-latency, interactive audio and text interactions with a model, enabling near-immediate conversational responses.
- Speech-to-text: A process or model that transcribes spoken audio into written text for downstream processing by language models.
- Tool calling: When a model triggers external functions or APIs to fetch data or execute operations as part of a conversation.
- Reasoning model: A model variant optimized to perform multi-step problem solving or long-form planning, often at higher computational cost.
Reader FAQ
Can Concierge complete a full booking on the website?
Not directly; on the public website it deep-links to the airline’s booking pages for payment. In-app booking is expected later.
Does Concierge accept voice as well as typed queries?
Yes. It supports typed and spoken input; spoken interactions are processed via speech-to-text and take longer to handle.
Is the assistant linked to customer accounts now?
No. The web deployment is unauthenticated. Tomoro says an upcoming mobile app will connect Concierge to user accounts.
Have there been any jailbreaks or major safety failures?
Tomoro reports no jailbreaks or major incidents since launch and emphasised that safety guardrails were a priority.
Will Concierge handle complex itinerary planning reliably?
Tomoro plans to explore reasoning models for complex itineraries, but detailed performance on such tasks is not confirmed in the source.
AI + ML 14 Like a Virgin Airways bot, planning for the very first time Airline deploys AI travel agent and it hasn't been a disaster Thomas Claburn Tue 23 Dec 2025 //…
Sources
- Like a Virgin Airways bot, planning for the very first time
- Virgin Atlantic launches the future of travel planning
- Virgin Airways AI travel bot – so far, so good
- Virgin Atlantic's AI Concierge Across Platfoms with OpenAI
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