Yandex Türkiye rolls out AI travel and finance tools

ISTANBUL

Yandex Türkiye has introduced new AI-powered services, including Yandex Travel and Yandex Finance, as part of its broader push to expand digital offerings.

The new services, dubbed Yandex Travel and Yandex Finance, aim to help users plan vacations or business trips and monitor financial data in real time.

These tools are integrated with the company’s search engine, Yazeka, and its response platform, Yandex Cevap.

Yandex Travel allows users to compare hotel and flight prices, with plans to expand into other transport modes such as buses.

“Our next milestone will be to integrate AI more into this scenario,” said Alexander Popovskiy, Yandex Türkiye CEO and Yandex Search International chief executive.

“We believe that current traditional representations of hotels and flights will be replaced by a more chat-like experience, further developed with technology,” he added.

Yandex Finance Türkiye offers AI-powered updates on exchange rates, stock prices, cryptocurrencies, and economic news.

He added that the company is working to further integrate Yandex Finance with Yazeka, potentially enabling it to deliver financial recommendations in the future.

Popovskiy said that although the ride-hailing market in Türkiye holds significant potential, the services currently offered remain insufficient, and that liberalizing the sector would bring numerous benefits.

He confirmed that Yandex Go recently received a license from Istanbul Municipality to provide electronic services — a key step toward entering the city’s competitive ride-hailing market.

“Our current strategy — before this liberalization comes to market — is to gain experience in places like Ankara, Izmir, and Antalya,” he added.

“Istanbul is a real diamond from a ride-hailing perspective. So we will be really careful coming here,” he said.