OpenAI has acquired Odessia, an AI travel agent startup founded by former Sonder CEO Francis Davidson, less than a year after the company was started. Davidson announced the deal in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday. The purchase price was not disclosed.
OpenAI has not announced the acquisition itself and did not respond to a request for comment. Odessia referred questions to Davidson's post. The company's website now says it has been acquired and that its service is no longer available during the transition.
Odessia was built to generate a bookable travel itinerary matching a user's preferences within minutes. Davidson wrote that tens of thousands of users planned travel worth about $60 million a year on the product this past summer. He said the aim was to ship the best AI travel agent in the market, and that he believes it achieved that. Davidson will join OpenAI to focus on the future of travel.
It is unclear whether other Odessia staff will move to OpenAI. Most of the company's employees listed on LinkedIn are based in Québec, and many also worked at Sonder.
Davidson left Sonder as CEO in June 2025 after overseeing an integration deal with Marriott International, a last-ditch effort to make the alternative lodging company profitable. The arrangement did not work out, and Sonder folded in late 2025. Davidson then founded Odessia and raised a $6 million round led by Sequoia.
Davidson attributed the speed of the build to AI agents. He wrote that his use of them rose sharply through 2026, with agents working around the clock, and that he could finish tasks that would normally take 40 hours in two.
