Encouraging kids to explore and enjoy travel through technology

Ahead of World Children’s Day which takes place annually on 20 November, digital travel platform Agoda created a children’s book using Generative AI (Gen AI) technology. The book, titled ‘Maya and the Secret World of Agoda’, sparks the imagination and encourages kids to explore and enjoy technology. It is now available to download for free on the Agoda platform and available in multiple languages, including Thai and English.

The original copy and the initial visual designs for the 24-page children’s book were created completely by Gen AI tools ChatGPT and Midjourney, under the supervision of Agoda’s marketing, tech, and translation teams.

‘Maya and the Secret World of Agoda’ is centered around a young girl named Maya, who embarks on an adventure while visiting her mother at Agoda’s Bangkok office. The book takes young readers on a journey, introducing them to technological concepts through charming characters that help capture their imaginations, making it an entertaining and educational choice for children and families interested in technology around the globe. It serves as a testament to to the platform's dedication to technology and its commitment to inspiring creativity in young minds, especially in Asia where Agoda is headquartered.

“Creating this book has been a fun project to help encourage more kids to explore and enjoy technology” said Idan Zalzberg, Chief Technology Officer at Agoda. “At the same time, it celebrates life at Agoda and the thousands of Agodans who work tirelessly to help travelers see the world for less. Both the copy and the visuals of the book could be improved with human involvement, but the result does show how rapidly this technology is improving.”

Zalzberg continues: “While the book was created mostly for fun and to inspire a future generation of tech talent, we take Gen AI very seriously within Agoda. There are over seventy internal projects taking place in the tech department alone to leverage increasing efficiency and improving our platform for travelers globally. Gen AI improvements are, as we speak, contributing to new under-the-hood features on the Agoda platform and is powering a more effective customer support experience.”

As a digital travel platform, Agoda is passionate about tech. To run the platform, it uses over 500,000 CPU cores across four datacenters around the world, managed by its engineering. 

‘Maya and the Secret World of Agoda’ is now available for free download on ago-da.co/aibook. There are editions available in the original AI-written English language, or in English combined with Thai, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Bahasa (Indonesia), Bahasa (Malaysia), Korean, or Vietnamese.

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