Lola, the year-old booking app powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and real-life travel consultants, is changing course to focus on business travel rather than leisure. While the company, founded by Kayak co-founder Paul English, isn't talking much about its new direction yet, senior writer Andrew Sheivachman put together all the news the company has revealed in a story this week.

The rebranding the well-funded startup has done is telling. The company now proclaims: "Lola is on a mission to make business travel buttery smooth," which sounds more like a description of Chardonnay than any business trips we've taken.

English has said the company spent time learning when to use AI and when human assistance is better. And, he said, he's learned that some travelers want self-service tools to make their own plans.

That bears out in research that we wrote about elsewhere this week: One story said 94 percent of executives chose mobile booking as their top IT-enabled priority, even though only 11 percent of employees booked travel on mobile sites. Another piece pointed out that 55 percent of U.S. business travelers surveyed said they believed that artificial intelligence would improve their travel experience. But in a sign that there's still some uncertainty around emerging technology, just 62 percent rejected "the belief that AI and [virtual reality] could end mankind as we know it today."

Sounds like there's still a ways to go — and a lot to figure out — before we reach that buttery smooth status.