OpenAI acquires Odessia, travel startup created by Sonder founder

OpenAI has acquired an AI travel agent called Odessia, according to Odessia’s founder, Francis Davidson. Davidson says in a post announcing the deal that he’s now working for OpenAI, helping the AI lab with the future of travel. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but this looks like an acqui-hire. Davidson’s announcement focused largely on how he built his AI travel agent Odessia by directing teams of AI agents. The year-old Odessia raised a $6 million pre-seed round led by Sequoia and launched its AI travel agent around five months ago. Davidson says that it had helped early adopters plan millions of dollars’ worth of travel, but the tool has already been shut down. OpenAI did not announce this acquisition, nor confirm it to TechCrunch, when asked. Nor has it announced new…