Odessia closes travel service after OpenAI acquisition

In his announcement, Davidson said tens of thousands of early adopters had used Odessia over the summer to plan what he described as more than $60 million per year of travel. That is a founder-reported measure of travel planned. It does not establish completed bookings, commission income or company revenue, and the announcement does not explain how the annual figure was calculated.

Travel experience, and an existing OpenAI connection

Davidson’s travel background includes a business that later shut down. In his acquisition announcement, he said he had built Sonder to $600 million in revenue over a decade with more than a thousand people. The formerly Marriott-backed accommodation company ceased operations in November 2025, the acquisition report notes. Its brand subsequently changed hands: TravelAI acquired it in July 2026 and relaunched Sonder.com.

He described Odessia as a different operating experiment, using AI agents across engineering, partnerships, design, customer support and other functions. He said those agents needed access to internal information and software tools, still required substantial correction, and eventually made human review and decisions the bottleneck.

Davidson argued that more capable frontier models could justify higher per-token prices by requiring fewer iterations. That is the founder’s account of productivity and cost, without disclosed company-wide spending or an independently measured comparison. His account also said the team worked six or seven days a week.

The relationship with OpenAI preceded the purchase. The acquisition report quotes OpenAI product employee Armin Hamrah welcoming Davidson and referring to their connection through Grove, OpenAI’s program for technical talent beginning to build companies, offering access to its researchers and resources. Hamrah described Davidson as leading the travel effort. Davidson’s public profile now identifies his role as travel at OpenAI.

OpenAI’s October 2025 apps announcement illustrated Booking.com hotel searches inside ChatGPT. Image: OpenAI. Source: OpenAI apps announcement.

What OpenAI still needs to explain

OpenAI already had travel offerings. In its October 6, 2025 apps announcement, the company named Booking.com and Expedia among the initial partners available inside ChatGPT, in markets where their services were offered. OpenAI said users could call apps by name or discover them through suggestions during conversations.

The next question is what Davidson’s effort adds to that arrangement: a successor concierge, capabilities for existing ChatGPT travel services, or another product. His announcement promises more detail but does not specify a launch date or explain how Odessia’s technology and travel partners will fit. For former users, the concrete instruction remains to contact support about existing bookings or plans; no replacement service has been announced in these accounts.

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