John Lyotier Of TravelAI: How We Leveraged AI To Take Our Company To The Next Level
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
SeamlessM4T from Meta — As a company that builds travel brands for a hyper-personalized world, it is important to create content in the language of all travelers, and travelers are global. We have been building and launching localized versions of several of our sites, transforming what used to be English-centric sites into the languages of our travelers. Recently, we have switched to Meta’s translation engine as we have found it flexible and accurate. We can now create a large site in one language and within a short period of time, have a localized version suitable for publishing.
In the ever-evolving and never-ending landscape of business, staying ahead of the curve is a prerequisite for success. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gone from being a futuristic concept to a daily business tool that executives can’t ignore. In this interview series, we would like to talk with business leaders who’ve successfully integrated A.I. into their operations, transforming their companies in the process. I had the pleasure of interviewing John Lyotier.
John Lyotier is co-founder and CEO of TravelAI, an applied AI company in the travel industry. Through a network of over 350 brands, like Rent by Owner, Hotala, and Vacation Cottages, TravelAI connects customers with hyper-personalized travel experiences.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! To set the stage, tell us briefly about your childhood and background.
I grew up in a small town in northern BC, closer to the Alaska border than the cosmopolitan city of Vancouver that I now call home. I was always curious and experimental with a thirst for knowledge, justice, and a lot of tinkering with what my mother would call, “my inventions”. My parents, both professionals themselves, emphasized learning — which was not always the case in the small, resource-based community that I grew up in.
The family got our first computer in 1986, and this was so freeing for me as I had the opportunity to express myself in ways that I could not otherwise do. I likely had what is now diagnosed as dysgraphia, a written output disability that prevented my thoughts from coming out clearly when I attempted anything via handwriting. It turns out that typing uses a different part of the brain, and I was now able to express myself and my ideas.
After turning my communication skills from my weakness into a strength, I went off to University intending to pursue law, not knowing that entrepreneurship was a career path. I was a Liberal Arts major with an emphasis on English and Art History. While I thought the English studies were useful, I found the study of Art History fascinating. It wasn’t, “Hey look at the pretty picture,” but I really liked the in-depth analysis of looking at the socioeconomic, political, and technological world around the artist. I was curious about the influence that past masters had on a particular artist or movement, and the impact that any particular artist had on future generations.
In time, I started to realize that entrepreneurship was something you could do [my first startup was in 1997 in the early days of what would become the DotCom boom… I thought this Internet thing was impactful and would be transformative]. While I was not an artist in the traditional sense, with the power of hindsight, I have realized much like those who I studied, in building a business we are being influenced by those who came before us. We use the tools and materials we have at our disposal to reflect the world as we experience it. Any output is a result of its input, and if we build it right, hopefully, that which we create will have an impact and influence future artists/entrepreneurs and the world at large.
This is one of the things that attracted me to AI and GenAI specifically. What the models are doing — being text, image, audio — it is using the entire corpus of human history and output to create new art. I had long thought that what separated man from the machine was the ability to produce Art. I no longer believe that to be the case. What we have seen is that the entire world is capable of producing Art, influenced by the works of all of humanity, using the technology of the day to express and make commentary on the socioeconomic and political world around us.
What were the early challenges you faced in your career, and how did they shape your approach to leadership?
Failure is an option. In fact, it is often a necessity in the creative process. My first startup failed. My second startup failed. In fact, along my journey, there have been a lot more failures than successes, but after each one, there have been learning opportunities and chances to improve and course correct.
I have heard from others that it is important for leaders to be confident and clear on the vision, yet fuzzy and flexible on the details. My approach to leadership is exactly that. I need to provide clarity and vision to my team about what we are trying to achieve and have minor course corrections along the way, but allow for flexibility and diversity of thoughts and approaches.
I was speaking with one of my product managers who is an avid sailor and we were discussing this very concept. It is imperative to adjust the sails and course-correct on any major journey. You have the destination in mind and that needs to be clear and the entire crew needs to be aware of the objective. However, from start to finish it will not be a straight line. However, failure to adjust along the way — either in response to data or new inputs — will leave you miles off course.
When you embrace this as a leader, hopefully, you inspire the team to start, and often starting is the hardest thing. A culture that does not permit the team to fail, winds up moving slowly and not advancing. be it a product idea, marketing concept, strategic partnership, or more. And today in the Age of AI, speed is imperative for an organization — you just have to be willing to course correct along the way.
We often learn the most from our mistakes. Can you share one mistake that turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned?
Geoffrey Moore once wrote, “Focus on your core, and outsource your context.” Yes, this applies to both large business and product decisions, but it also applies to understanding the inherent strengths that every individual has.
Early in my career as a leader, I used to explain the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of any particular feature rather than the ‘why’. This led to many mistakes, wasted time, and a lot of frustrations for all involved. However, I am a non-technical founder, and I should not be telling my team of talented engineers how. This is not my role nor my strength. I believe that it is imperative to empower the individual with the vision and what you are hoping to accomplish, give guidance and support along the way, but let people who have the expertise in a certain area determine the best course of action relating back to that which is their core.
If you have hired properly, you have surrounded yourself with talented people who have strengths that complement your own. A long time ago and early in my career, I did the Gallup ‘StrengthsFinders’ test and identified that my strengths in order were: Ideation, Strategic, Futuristic, Command, and Input. If I am playing to my strengths, I am most happy and in the zone. These elements are my core. If I stray out of the lane, I am filled with discontent and frankly, not very effective.
What is interesting in the course of AI is that it is now possible to “Delegate to the Machine” for concepts that are not your strength or your core, be it writing, coding, data analysis, or just basic understanding. We will soon be filled with an entire world of AI Agents who will be trained to complement your strengths. If you stay focused on your strengths and are enhanced by the machine, you become a super team.
A.I. is a big leap for many businesses. When and what first sparked your interest in incorporating it into your operations?
In 2019, I had the good fortune of being a speaker at SXSW in Austin. I took in the event for the entire week before my talk and sat in on many other panels. Sometimes you need a pause and be open to different viewpoints or ideas to get the brain going. At that 2019 event, I saw several panels that were talking about the power (and advances) of the technology.
There was one panel that was demonstrating the machine’s ability to generate music. Another was showcasing early LLMs and their ability to write factually-sounding stories. Still others were talking about the societal and ethical impacts of the technology. And then in the artistic and cultural events surrounding the festival, numerous artists were experimenting with this new medium or in other data-driven and technology-driven expressions.
As noted above, I believed that which separated man from the machine was the ability to generate art in any form and express the world of the artist based on the inputs that surrounded them, be it socioeconomic or political. If asked before that spring about how and when we would know that AGI would have been achieved, I would have answered something to the effect that when the art that is produced can be done so that it is indistinguishable from humanity, where the machine is capable of being influenced by past masters, influence future generations, and use the inputs of the world around it to produce meaning.
What I saw in 2019 was that this was on the verge of being achieved. And those that had the data were in a fortuitous position as they could influence the machine. We had copious amounts of data and were using it to make decisions daily already, so it became a business imperative to tweak our operations and growth loops so that we might optimize for more data to be created. From there, it was all about immersion and learning as fast as we could to prepare for a future that we believed was inevitable.
AI can be a game-changer for individuals and their responsibilities. Can you share how you personally use AI and what are your go-to resources or tools?
Like many others, I use MidJourney, Runway, or ChatGPT on a pretty much daily basis. Sometimes it is about artistic expression for myself, though more often it is about simplifying concepts. To clarify, none of these answers have been formulated by ChatGPT, but I have used it 4–6 times this morning already to quickly summarize concepts or illustrate concepts that I have.
Internally, we have built our own content generation engine and workflow tool that we call our ContentKicthen. This allows us to scale content generation onto many sites and can use different LLMs depending on the type of content being created.
We recently revamped and launched a new brand called Casai, which is kind of a combination of ‘Casa’ + ‘AI’ … which is kind of what we do. I ‘brainstormed’ back and forth with ChatGPT to create the brand voice, taglines, and homepage copy. Then once we had that, it was easy to use that branding guide in the rest of the site’s creation: from image generation, to content, to advertising copy and social posts. Even email sequences were created using AI in creating and launching the brand. It allowed us to go from a newly purchased domain name to a fully-launched and profitable site in days.
On the flip side, what challenges or setbacks have you encountered while implementing A.I. into your company?
I think we are not unusual in that with the pace of change, sometimes we are overwhelmed by choice or paralyzed by an abundance of tools that are now on the market. I have tried so many, and each has merits. And organizationally, it has been hard to convey to the team that it is OK to use these new technologies in their everyday. I think in some instances, some people feel that using generative technologies is akin to cheating on a paper and want to ensure that the leadership of the company knows that they can do the work. Thus, from the top down, we have had to lead by example.
Let’s dig into this further. Can you share the top 5 A.I. tools or different ways you’re integrating AI into your business? What specific functions do they serve and what kind of result have you seen so far?
1 . GitHub Copilot — We had an efficient and cost-effective development team that used pair programming effectively before this age of AI. Now with GitHub’s Copilot, the team is that much faster and produces better code quality. No lie… we had a junior developer ask for a salary increase as he was performing the output of a senior developer with the help of this toolset.
2 . MidJourney, Dall-E, Adobe FireFly — Different tools, but they serve the same purpose. Like many other organizations, we use assorted GenAI tools to create image assets for use across our business, with each tool proving useful for different types of images. We use these tools to inspire travelers via social media or across our network of sites, create comprehensive libraries of generic images in our marketing campaigns, or to set the mood. Recently, we had a brainstorming session with our product team. We are creating a new product and asked Dall-E to imagine interfaces for this yet-to-be-defined product. These were not meant to be the interface, but sometimes it helps to have reference concepts and it was better to use these images rather than competitor interfaces.
3 . OpenAI API GPT 4.0 — While both myself and my team members are using paid ChatGPT accounts for personal brainstorming, rewriting, or content creation, we also have built some proprietary GenAI tools using OpenAI’s API. These tools allow us to output text that goes straight into a workflow where our content team can manipulate content, check for accuracy, and other edits. This allows us to augment our team’s capacity, while still allowing the human voice to shine through.
4 . SeamlessM4T from Meta — As a company that builds travel brands for a hyper-personalized world, it is important to create content in the language of all travelers, and travelers are global. We have been building and launching localized versions of several of our sites, transforming what used to be English-centric sites into the languages of our travelers. Recently, we have switched to Meta’s translation engine as we have found it flexible and accurate. We can now create a large site in one language and within a short period of time, have a localized version suitable for publishing.
5 . Image Classification & Clustering — This again is more of a technical answer, but is indicative of some of the pervasiveness and usage of AI across the company. We identified an issue (and thus an opportunity) to match properties across different travel sellers. We were able to identify duplicate and similar properties across partners. Thus, if a person is interested in Unit 402, but it is unavailable, we have created an embedding of the property to recommend similar properties (e.g. Unit 404), thus helping our travelers find a place to stay when they would be otherwise left out in the cold.
There’s concern about A.I. taking over jobs. How do you balance A.I. tools with your human workforce and have you already replaced any positions using technology?
I have been telling the team that now is the time to be curious. We are fortunate that there is so much information and knowledge at our fingertips, we just have to be curious to explore it. The more that you are curious, you have a chance to build upon the work of those who have come before you, learn from them, and then inspire the next generation. A small company can act much bigger than it is when it embraces AI and the efficiencies that it creates. We have not replaced any positions using the technology. However, we may have hired less because AI allows you to do the work of many, scaling the team’s output without scaling the size of the team.
Looking ahead, what’s on the horizon in the world of AI that people should know about? What do you see happening in the next 3–5 years? I would love to hear your best prediction.
I believe in a future of Agents and Actions. That is, we are going to each have our AI Agents that are programmed to decide things on our behalf, aligned to our personal philosophies and traits. My Agent will be empowered to transact and act on my behalf and negotiate purchases and contracts while reaching a consensus. However, it is likely that my Agent will be interacting with other Agents in addition to other people, be it Agents from other individuals or companies. Similarly, companies will have their corporate Agents acting on behalf of the group and working towards a common objective, negotiating with other Companies’ agents and with the Agents of its employees.
If you had to pick just one AI tool that you feel is essential, one that you haven’t mentioned yet, which would it be and why?
It is less about picking one tool that is essential, but it is about being open to the plethora of tools around us. Try them all. Learn new habits. Keep experimenting.
For the uninitiated, what advice would you give someone looking to integrate AI into their business and doesn’t know where to start?
If you are looking to integrate, I think it is important to realize that many AI technologies have been around us for years, we just didn’t call it AI. Put another way, the adoption of AI is here already, it is just not evenly distributed. I am still amazed when I visit San Francisco and see self-driving cars. Yet to locals, this is now old hat and these AI-powered autonomous cars are just part of the landscape. If you are looking to incorporate into a business and you are a leader, embrace the tools at the highest level. Lead from the top. Try the tools yourself and get your team to try them too. Which tools? Try them all. Learn new habits. Keep experimenting. For those who may be intimidated by trying new tools or think that it is too late and you have missed the AI boat… you haven’t. This is just the beginning. Adopt and learn tools now as this will be the future.
Where can our readers follow you to learn more about leveraging A.I. in the business world?
At TravelAI.com, we are about merging the largest industry (Travel) with this most impactful technology (AI). We apply it to our business from top to bottom, looking to become more efficient in operations. Our philosophy is to operate at speed and scale and AI technologies allow us to do exactly that. We have been trying to create a lot of resources for those in travel and share them on our website at www.TravelAI.com/resources. Come take a look.
To reach me personally, the best way to get in touch is via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlyotier/
This was great. Thanks for taking time for us to learn more about you and your business. We wish you continued success!
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com.
