Meet Sidekick: Fora’s AI Tool

Fora was born out of a need to modernize the travel advisor industry, and with the addition of artificial intelligence to Fora’s Portal, its mission continues, putting powerful and innovative tech tools into the hands of travel advisors.

Our tech team understands that advisors need quick access to accurate information when researching trips for their clients, so we built an AI chatbot to help. Meet Sidekick: Fora’s AI assistant for Fora Advisors.

“Sidekick is a great example of how we can make simple, yet powerful improvements to parts of the legacy tech infrastructure in the travel industry,” said Fora’s Co-Founder & CPO/CTO Jake Peters.

The power of Sidekick is seen in expediting everyday advisor tasks, such as searching for resources from our portfolio of partners and training.

“Sidekick is super useful for accessing anything quickly,” Fora Advisor Lauren Ruehl said, “whether I'm looking for a preferred partner contact, information about programs within fora or training on specific subjects.”

What is Sidekick?

Sidekick is a GPT-4 chatbot that is trained on  Fora’s proprietary information to help provide our travel advisors with easy-to-access, relevant information that assists them with the booking process. Sidekick is embedded directly into the Fora Advisor Portal alongside the rest of our advisors’ suite of business tools. 

What information can Sidekick find? What does Sidekick know?

One of the benefits of being a Fora Advisor is the breadth of resources. Sidekick has access to Fora’s library of resources that includes nearly 400 training videos and 35,000+ hotel partners (and counting). It also has access to information in our community app, Forum, which is a hive of travel advisor activity, with 1,500+ daily active users averaging 100 new posts and ~18,000 comments as of last month. And Sidekick can access Fora’s travel guides & trip reports from our website, partner information and our Help Center. Sidekick searches all those sources, putting all the relevant information at advisors’ fingertips in seconds.

How does Sidekick help Fora Advisors? 

So, Sidekick knows a lot…but what can it do? With its access to all of Fora’s resources, it can sift through them and quickly return the top hits for keywords and queries. Results are neatly categorized according to their original location, whether listed in Forum, Partners, Training or Advisor Guides, which helps the user quickly determine which link(s) best fit their needs.

For example, advisors can type in a question like, “What do I need to know about Auberge Resorts?” or “I have a client traveling to Rome. What are some fun things for them to do?” and Sidekick lists training resources, articles and Forum posts where advisors can learn about these partners and destinations.  

“I love Sidekick and it is a great way to simplify research when looking for something on (the community app) Forum,” Fora Advisor Angela Marini said, who also uses the tool to help other advisors. “When a fellow advisor has a question or comment on Forum, I can reply quickly, easily and accurately by using Sidekick to pull up the information I need.”

“I find myself using Sidekick to help point me in the right direction. For example, I'll ask Sidekick for training on cruise providers,” Fora Advisor Jen Lyon said. “I also use Sidekick whenever I'm looking for instructions to log onto a new partner site. While I'm going to Forum for destination advice, I use Sidekick to answer my how-to operational questions to complete bookings.”

At the bottom of each answer, there’s a thumbs up/down button that advisors can share real-time feedback. Our tech team monitors all feedback and is constantly improving Sidekick.

What’s next for Sidekick?

With the dynamic nature of artificial intelligence, Sidekick is constantly improving and learning, pairing the best tech tools with the wisdom of the modern travel advisor to plan incredible trips.

“Over time, we will be enabling Sidekick to have more information and powers,” Jake said. “We also have an aggressive AI roadmap of product features including giving Sidekick access to all of our historical booking information, the ability to drive our Booking Platform to pull rates, availability and perks, along with each advisor's own client information to deliver the next level of helpful advice and solutions for advisors.” 

Learn more about how Sidekick can improve your travel advisor business. Sign up to become a Fora Advisor today.