Expedia’s AI-Driven Reorganization: 8 Execs Out, 5 Promoted

An internal memo at Expedia Group, circulated this week and obtained by GeekWire, cuts through corporate euphemism with a stark declaration: “AI has radically changed what’s possible.” For the Seattle-based online travel giant, that radical change is not just about what it builds but who builds it. The company is parting ways with at least eight vice presidents and senior vice presidents in a sweeping reorganization of its product and technology divisions, a move explicitly designed to reorient its entire engine around artificial intelligence.

The memo, signed by Chief Product Officer Shilpa Ranganathan and Chief Technology Officer Ramana Thumu, frames this as a necessary revolution. “Work that once took weeks increasingly happens in hours,” they write. To capture that velocity, Expedia is dismantling old hierarchies. It is moving to “small end-to-end squads with clear ownership” and vowing to make AI and machine learning “part of every mission.” This isn’t a tweak. It is, as the leaders state, a fundamental change in how they work, how they’re organized and the technology they build. The human cost of that change, at least initially, is measured in the departures of seasoned leaders like Sachin Singh, the Senior VP of book-to-trip technology and a former Amazon executive, along with seven other VPs.

Expedia’s spokesperson described the impact as “limited,” noting that most changes involved employees shifting teams or reporting lines. But the symbolism is potent. When a company breaks up the portfolio of a senior executive like Singh—whose realm spanned checkout, payments, fraud and post-booking service—and disperses those functions to other leaders, it is signaling a clean break from legacy structures. It is betting that agility, fueled by AI, trumps traditional silos.

This upheaval is not happening in a vacuum. It is a defensive maneuver in an industry staring down what Expedia CEO Ariane Gorin has called the third major technological disruption in its history, following the internet and mobile. The fear is palpable. AI-powered travel agents could potentially do to Expedia and Booking.com what those platforms did to traditional travel agencies a generation ago: become the new primary interface, relegating the current giants to mere suppliers in the background. The CEO of Marriott has openly stated that AI booking agents will hurt online travel agencies more than hotels. Expedia’s response has been to embed itself within these new AI platforms, becoming a launch partner for OpenAI’s plugin ecosystem and buying ads inside ChatGPT. But this week’s reorganization suggests that being a partner is not enough. To survive, Expedia believes it must become an AI-native company.

The promotions listed alongside the departures reveal where Expedia is placing its bets. Debashis Saha’s elevation to Senior Vice President of Travel Foundations and the consolidation of data, AI and “agentic platforms” under Xavier Amatriain, Expedia’s first Chief AI and Data Officer, point to a central truth. The company’s new core competency is no longer just connecting travelers with rooms and flights. It is processing immense datasets to predict, personalize and automate the entire trip. The role of Chief Architect, now filled by Rick Fast, underscores the need to rebuild the technical foundation for this AI-first world.

For the roughly 8,000 employees in Expedia’s product and technology organization, the memo promises a future of less coordination and more action. It champions autonomy and speed, arguing that “a lot of speed blockers are structural.” Yet, for an industry built on scale and stability, this shift carries immense risk. The initial market reaction to AI in travel has been volatile. When OpenAI scaled back its direct travel booking ambitions earlier this year, shares of Expedia and Booking Holdings surged, a sign that investors still see the disruption as a potential threat rather than an immediate overthrow. Expedia is now aggressively moving to control that narrative by restructuring its own house before the market restructures it for them.

The full memo, with its detailed “placemats” and reassignments, is a blueprint for a corporate metamorphosis. It is an acknowledgment that the AI era, as Gorin said, is “only starting to unfold.” Expedia’s leadership is making a calculated and costly wager that its future depends on moving faster than that unfolding—even if it means leaving some of its architects behind. The journey from a transactional booking platform to an intelligent travel engine is now their only itinerary.

• AI has radically changed what’s possible
• Expedia is parting ways with at least eight VPs
• Moving to small end-to-end squads
• Embedding AI into every mission
• New core competency includes processing datasets
• Expedia is becoming an AI-native company