United Airlines bans personal AI agents from booking flights

CBS News reports that United Airlines said on Wednesday, November 11, that it is banning AI agents from making flight reservations on travelers' behalf. United cites security risks and possible violations of federal rules.

According to CBS News, quoting United:

• Sharing account credentials with personal, third-party AI assistants "can expose sensitive information," and their actions "may result in unintended purchases, account changes, or use of MileagePlus miles."
• Using an agent to, for example, check in for a flight could break federal rules, including the requirement that travelers verify in person that their luggage holds no banned substances.
• United says it is restricting access "directly within our digital platforms and indirectly via travel agencies and aggregators" to stop unauthorized third-party personal AI agents and assistants, and is updating its booking and ticketing policies.

CBS names Meta's Muse and OpenAI's dots as examples of agents consumers use for purchases. It quotes aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research Group, who says United wants to keep control of the booking process and avoid the cost of AI bot flight searches, and who expects United fares to stay bookable through aggregators such as Kayak, Hopper and Google Flights. CBS notes that Southwest has made its flight inventory viewable to ChatGPT users.