MakeMyTrip’s Myra assistant now handles over 50,000 conversations a day, and more than 45% of the queries come from Tier-2 and smaller cities, according to MakeMyTrip said in February. The company announced on 18 February 2026 that OpenAI’s APIs had been integrated into the assistant.
On 30 September, Group CTO Sanjay Mohan took the stage at Inc42’s CTO Summit 2026 for a session titled ‘What Lakhs Of AI Conversations Are Teaching MakeMyTrip About How India Travels’. Inc42 reported his remarks. Five moves stand out, and each one carries a lesson for any travel business that sells in India.
1. One conversation replaces a sequence of steps
Mohan said users now combine flight preferences, visa requirements and payment offers in a single conversation. Those used to be separate steps, each on its own screen and in a fixed order.
Each hop between screens is a point where a traveller can drop out. For airlines, fare rules, visa documents and card offers belong in one answer. For hotels, the same logic covers room type, cancellation terms and the payment offer that applies. An OTA that keeps those answers apart is asking customers to do the stitching themselves.
2. Voice booking for users who find typing a barrier
Mohan said voice use is significant in Tier III and IV regions, where typing is a barrier. Myra 2.0, launched in May 2026, added voice booking in eight languages.
Most booking funnels assume a keyboard and comfortable written English. Voice reaches the customers those funnels quietly lose. Any airline, hotel chain or OTA selling to smaller cities faces the same gap, and speaking is a lower hurdle than typing a search.
3. Eight languages from the start
Myra works in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and English. The list fits the audience: more than 45% of queries arrive from Tier-2 and smaller cities.
Language coverage is a demand decision rather than a courtesy. A hotel group in Kerala or an airline flying out of Chennai receives questions in Malayalam and Tamil, and an assistant that replies in those languages keeps the booking inside the chat. MakeMyTrip cites over 87 million lifetime transacted users, so the audience it is serving is wide.
4. Complete bookings inside the chat
Myra 2.0 handles a complete booking in one chat, with integrated payments and passport OCR upload. The traveller does not need to leave the conversation to pay or to submit travel documents.
An assistant that only recommends sends the customer elsewhere to finish. One that takes payment and reads a passport upload closes the sale itself. On international routes, where document checks slow the process, that is where the time is saved, and where an airline or OTA stands to lose the fewest customers.
5. MakeMyTrip and OpenAI: meeting travellers where discovery starts
Rajesh Magow, Co-founder and Group CEO, said the OpenAI collaboration means that when a traveller begins a journey through conversation, MakeMyTrip carries on naturally from that discovery.
The OpenAI integration places MakeMyTrip inside the chats where trips now begin, rather than waiting for a customer to open its app. For hotels and airlines, the point is plain: if a traveller starts planning in a conversation, the brand that is present in that conversation gets the first look.
Key takeaway
The one thing to copy is the scope, not the technology: one assistant that carries a traveller from question to payment, in the language and the mode they use. Start with the step where customers drop out today, whether that is visa questions, offers or document upload, and put that step inside the conversation first.
