Concertgoers are increasingly abandoning traditional filters and simply describing what they want, allowing AI to narrow down the options. European ticket marketplace Seatpin created the assistant Pin AI after observing this behavior: users browsed pages with filters but still went to chat and WhatsApp with requests like "tickets for a specific match" or "two seats for a concert."
"Some customers prefer conversation over navigating through sites, filters, and options," said Seatpin founder and CEO Galin Ananiev in an interview with PYMNTS. According to him, this behavior is not limited to a young audience—it is found across all age groups.
Seatpin is not alone in betting that the search bar and results grid can be condensed into a conversation. SeatGeek launched Ask SeatGeek in August, allowing fans to enter queries like "popular outdoor concerts under $100" and receive a direct answer instead of working with filters. "We spent 17 years organizing the details that matter when choosing a ticket," said SeatGeek co-founder and CEO Jack Groetzinger. Ticketmaster took a similar path: it connected its listings to Google Gemini in August and to the ChatGPT app marketplace earlier this year, allowing users to compare seats and prices in a chat, while completing checkout on its site. Seatpin is also already working in the ChatGPT marketplace, Ananiev said, although referral traffic remains limited as the company has not promoted the listing or created brand awareness. For Ananiev, the complex question is not the search, but how much of the purchase can be entrusted to the assistant.
He drew a clear line between an assistant that prepares a purchase and one that completes it. His preferred scenario: the agent searches listings and assembles the order, then sends the client an email with ticket details, the final price, and an approval button. Clicking triggers an SMS code for second confirmation, after which the transaction goes through. "A convenient approach is for the agent to prepare everything, while the final approval remains with the client," Ananiev said. He would not want the assistant to be independently authorized to spend the consumer's money without such verification. Handing over a saved card number to the assistant and allowing it to place an order independently is a more challenging problem, Ananiev noted, as prices and ticket availability may change between search and purchase. Dividing the flow into preparation and approval leaves the client as the final decision-maker in a purchase that, unlike reordering a household item, can be expensive and difficult to reverse.
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