OpenAI publishes Radisson ChatGPT plugin case study

On October 7, OpenAI published a case study on Radisson Hotel Group's ChatGPT plugin. Built by Radisson with Accenture in six weeks, the plugin lets people find hotels and compare prices inside a ChatGPT conversation, then hands them over to Radisson's own site to book. According to OpenAI, the plugin's visit-to-booking conversion rate in July and August 2026 was about 1.5 times that of Radisson's organic search. Radisson also ran sponsored ads in ChatGPT alongside the plugin, and 54% of recorded checkout and booking events were attributed to ad views.

Radisson operates ten hotel brands across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific. It has more than 1,640 hotels in operation and under development. According to reports at launch, the app covered more than 1,000 hotels in over 100 countries. When a user names a destination, amenities or travel preferences, it shows matching hotels with live rates, neighborhood details and an interactive map, then sends the user to Radisson's official site to complete the reservation.

The plugin was built by Accenture Song, Accenture's marketing and creative arm. Accenture has spent the past seven years helping Radisson grow its direct booking channel, and as an Elite Partner of the OpenAI Partner Network it worked with OpenAI on strategies for visibility inside ChatGPT. "Almost overnight, there was a new surface where prospects were getting inspired, comparing different alternatives, and almost making their decision before even reaching a hotel's website," explained Borja Lizarraga Rodríguez, Data & AI Lead at Accenture Song.

The build relied on agentic development. The team built and launched the Radisson Hotels plugin in six weeks, and users can see suggested hotels on a map along with prices and amenities right in ChatGPT. According to reports, Accenture used an MCP accelerator within its AI Merchant Center to structure Radisson's content, inventory and pricing signals so AI agents can read them reliably. The plugin connects directly to Radisson's existing systems to pull in real-time information.

How the plugin is invoked has also changed. At first, users had to put @RadissonHotels in front of their question, but after a recent ChatGPT update the plugin appears automatically in relevant conversations for users who have installed it. "If you're planning a trip to Madrid, and there's a new Radisson Hotel you might want to consider, now in ChatGPT it will just automatically work," said Brittny Cantor, Agentic Commerce Lead at Accenture. METAL has previously reported that OpenAI expanded ChatGPT ads to Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

The ads were designed as a package with the plugin. The OpenAI case study page that METAL reviewed puts three figures at the top: a booking conversion of about 1.5 times, 54% ad attribution and a six-week build. Radisson launched sponsored ad campaigns in ChatGPT in July and has expanded them to markets across Europe and beyond. OpenAI said more than half of the recorded checkout and booking events from the campaigns were captured through view-through measurement, which looks at actions taken after seeing an ad rather than clicking it. The MCP server and APIs that Accenture built for the plugin also power the ads experience and will underpin other features to come.

Radisson's executives see the channel as an extension of their direct booking strategy. "AI is radically transforming how people search for and book hotel stays, and we are committed to being at the forefront of this shift," said Gianni Di Fede, Chief Commercial Officer of Radisson Hotel Group. "We are bringing our branded app and sponsored advertising together in ChatGPT as part of one discovery strategy," said Velit Dundar, Vice President of Global Ecommerce, adding that "our focus is to connect those conversations to our direct booking experience."

The next steps are already set. According to reports, Radisson and Accenture plan to add personalized recommendations, loyalty recognition, booking completed within the conversation, reservation management and changes, and AI concierge features. In Accenture's consumer research, 87% of travelers said they are open to working with an AI travel agent to find travel options, and 71% expect AI to influence at least half of their hotel and airline spending over the next 12 months. Inside ChatGPT, Radisson now sits alongside Accor's ALL and DirectBooker.

Seen through a content marketing lens, what this case shows is competition not for search rankings but for shelf space inside a conversation. Hotel booking has long found its way between search engine ads and online travel agency commissions, and Radisson has set up shop one step earlier, in the planning conversation. The 1.5-times conversion and 54% view-through figures come from a customer case study page OpenAI chose to publish, and the baseline is Radisson's own organic search. Whether those numbers hold once other hotel chains reach the same shelf is the real test of this channel.