AI Agents Still Need Middlemen. But Will They Need Amadeus?

Amadeus has spent decades connecting airlines with travel sellers. AI agents may change how customers shop, but somebody still has to find flights, complete bookings, and handle changes. On its Q3 2026 earnings call on Friday, November 6, an analyst asked why Meta’s Muse was using Duffel rather than Amadeus to do that work.

CFO Carol Borg said the Muse-Duffel partnership supports Amadeus’ belief that AI platforms will use aggregators rather than build booking systems themselves. She doesn’t think it displaces the GDS model: “It actually reinforces it.”

But Duffel, not Amadeus, has the direct relationship with Muse. Other companies are pursuing similar roles across airline distribution, hotel booking and payments.

A Growing Field

As Skift reported in September, Muse uses Duffel to access flight inv