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Most flight bookings made through Meta’s new AI agents would be handled by an intermediary travellers may not notice, according to a new study from travel marketing agency Propellic.

The study looked at Meta’s Muse, launched in the US in September with travel booking built in, and Instinct, an invite-only agent users interact with by text message. Both can take a booking through to the payment step once a traveller has chosen an option.

In 57 per cent of flight booking audit runs, the booking would have been handled by Duffel, the booking API behind both agents’ flight bookings – even when the traveller had named a specific airline. The airline, hotel or tour operator received the booking directly in 28 per cent of cases, while platforms such as Booking.com and Expedia accounted for 14 per cent.

What the traveller asks for changes the outcome. Every hotel request that explicitly asked to book direct resulted in a booking with the hotel, and every request naming a specific brand ended with that brand. When asked for the cheapest option, the agents picked the lowest price they displayed in 88 per cent of runs.

Travellers also remain wary of handing over payment. In the survey, 66 per cent of real conversations stopped at the research or shortlist stage, and where an agent reached the approval step, around half of users stepped in to check details such as seats, baggage or cancellation terms before completing the booking themselves. Asked about a real trip, 36 per cent of interviewees said they would let an AI agent pay, while another 36 per cent said they would under certain conditions, such as a refundable booking or a low-value purchase.

Propellic founder and CEO Brennen Bliss said the findings point to a shift from earlier research, which found AI recommending direct booking options in 71 per cent of results.

“Now AI agents can take bookings all the way to checkout, but more than half the time, those bookings would go through an intermediary,” Bliss said. “Agentic AI platforms have swung the pendulum back towards the traditional travel supply chain, adding a new layer in the middle.”

The research combined scripted booking requests across four routes, a user survey and recorded interviews that included a live booking task. It is Propellic’s third study of AI in travel, following From Search to Purchase (2025) and The State of AI Visibility for Travel in 2026.