Travelxp launches Marco, India’s first travel AI agent that can book and pay for trips  

Travelxp becomes the first travel platform in India to launch an AI agent that can plan, pay for, and manage a trip on a traveler’s behalf  

Travelxp, India’s first content-led travel commerce platform, has launched Marco, an agentic AI trip concierge, the first of its kind from an Indian travel platform, at Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai. Marco can discover, plan, book and pay for a trip on a traveller’s behalf, within spending limits the preset by the traveller.  

The shift is already under way in some countries: Poke, a text-based AI assistant, exchanged over 100 million user messages in the three months before its acquisition by Cognition in July 2026; Instinct, a similar agent, raised a $250 million Series B at a $2.5 billion valuation, taking its total funding to roughly $350 million, within months of its 2026 launch, both used in part to handle travel bookings and logistics. No Indian travel platform has brought this model to travel specifically. Travelxp is the first to do so, launching Marco at Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai.  

What changes for travelers  

Today, booking a multi-part trip typically means comparing flights on one platform, hotels on another, arranging local transport separately, and manually tracking a budget across all of it. With Marco, a traveller sets a destination, a budget, and their preferences once. Marco then searches, books and pays across flights, hotels, transfers and activities directly, only returning to the traveller for approval when a decision falls outside the limits they’ve set. For a traveller, this means fewer steps and less manual coordination.  

Marco also stays active after booking. If a flight is delayed or prices shift, it can assess the impact on the rest of the itinerary and adjust connected bookings, hotel check-in, a transfer, an activity slot, without the traveller needing to open multiple apps or contact each provider separately.  

How the Payment Layer works  

The system is built on a new agentic payment infrastructure that lets Marco initiate and execute payments on its own, within permissions the traveller defines upfront: total budget, categories it can spend on, and any actions that require the traveller’s explicit approval before proceeding. This is the piece that has been missing from most AI travel tools to date, the ability for an agent to not just recommend, but to transact.  

A 2026 research from IMG found a gap among travellers who use AI for trip planning, 75% use it for recommendations, while only 13% use it to complete an actual booking. Because a single trip can involve payments to airlines, hotels, transfer operators and activity providers, all as separate transactions with separate merchants.  

Marco’s role is to treat the trip as one connected budget rather than a series of disconnected purchases, closing the gap between AI that suggests and AI that books.  

First in India, launched at Global Fintech Fest  

Travelxp is the first Indian travel platform to launch an end-to-end agentic payment experience, unveiled live at Global Fintech Fest 2026, one of the world’s largest fintech events. The showcase walks through the full flow: a traveller stating their intent, Marco building a trip plan, and Marco executing bookings and payments within pre-set permissions.  

The launch positions Travelxp at the front of a broader shift already visible in global commerce, where AI systems are moving from providing information to taking authorised action on a person’s behalf.