Mihail Douhaniaris
Mihail Douhaniaris is a Senior Data Scientist at GetYourGuide, a leading online travel marketplace for discovering and booking tours, attractions and activities worldwide. At GetYourGuide, Mihail works on the marketplace ranking algorithms, enhancing search relevance and enabling travelers discover experiences best tailored to their preferences. Beyond his role, Mihail is also passionate about responsible AI, ML observability, and deploying machine learning at scale.
Session
GetYourGuide, a global marketplace for travel experiences, reached diminishing returns with its XGBoost-based ranking system. We switched to a Deep Learning pipeline in just nine months, maintaining high throughput and low latency. We iterated on over 50 offline models and conducted more than 10 live A/B tests, ultimately deploying a PyTorch transformer that yielded significant gains. In this talk, we will share our phased approach—from a simple baseline to a high-impact launch—and discuss the key operational and modeling challenges we faced. Learn how to transition from tree-based methods to neural networks and unlock new possibilities for real-time ranking.