ART-AI Seminar
We are pleased to have Conor Worthington, who is a Machine Learning Scientist working for Expedia Group, Inc., join us for this ART-AI seminar entitled ‘Building AI at scale for travel’.
This seminar will take place in person in 1W 2.03, on Tuesday 10th June 2025, 13.15pm-14.15pm (GMT). Cohort 3 student Doug Tilley will be chairing this seminar. There is also an option to join online. For more information, please e-mail [email protected].
Title
Building AI at scale for travel
Abstract
Traditional recommender systems work by comparing relevance and ranking metrics; as one of the largest global trip recommendation websites, Expedia research investigates a range of different techniques to optimize the traveller experience and holiday search to ensure seamless user experience where traditional systems may fail. An example of these methods is Hotel2Vec which learns embeddings through a range of different user inputs rather than a simple ranking metric. This is just one of the many techniques developed to provide the best user experience and holiday recommendation. In this talk, we will be giving a holistic overview of the current Machine Learning and AI research that is being conducted at Expedia and how this research is being applied in the real world to maximise traveller experience.
Bio
Conor is a Machine Learning Scientist (MLS) working for Expedia Group, Inc. in their London Office. At Expedia, Conor is part of the Search team, one of the core teams helping Expedia to perform at the forefront of the holiday recommendation industry. His work helps to develop and improve models, ensuring that travellers using the Expedia Groups technology can get the best properties and deals for their holidays and bookings.
Prior to his work at Expedia, Conor has previously worked in the ML for defence team at Fujitsu, forming core partnerships with proven technology. During his time, he led multiple teams to win several private contract competitions in collaboration with the British Government. He also spent a couple of years working in a start-up focused around recommending educational content to help support children who have fallen behind due to social and societal difficulties, this arose out of necessity during the Pandemic. Conor completed his Masters in Machine Learning from the University of Bath in 2020, with his dissertation working with Olga Isupova to detect elephants using satellite imagery to track their movements.
