Could AI make your Business Travel Experience more effective, efficient and affordable? Here’s how to maximize AI to take your business travel program to the next level.
There’s a lot of chatter around AI at the moment. Yes, ChatGPT may be relatively old news at this point. However, there’s still a lot of talk about how AI should be used responsibly, as well as how AI could make our lives easier. You’ve probably already seen this to some degree through long-popularized AI tools such as Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. Now, though, AI has gone far beyond just being able to tell you the weather or the score of the football game.
Today, AI can transform the way you perform your job, as well as how you travel for work or manage travel for your team members. Here are some of our favorite ways you can maximize AI for more effective, efficient, and ultimately- affordable business travel.
1. AI can make customer service seamless.
Customer service chatbots powered by AI can do so much more than the customer service chatbots of the past. You know the ones. The chatbots that really only know a few sentences. They ask you a few multiple-choice questions. Then they decide you’re better off contacting a human customer service representative. AI-powered chatbots are far from this, though, and the benefits are proven for Travelers.
For example, with an AI customer service chatbot at the ready, Travel Managers and Travel Management Companies don’t necessarily need to be available to Travelers 24/7 to answer mundane questions that generative AI can answer. Additionally, when Travel Managers or arrangers aren’t available to Travelers it means those Travelers don’t need to wait to get an answer to a simple question. The generative AI chatbot can fill in.
Already, AI chatbots are making a difference in the aviation industry. According to Forbes, WestJet’s AI chatbot, dubbed Juliet, had a customer support success rate of 74% before Covid. It then easily kept up as demand increased after the pandemic.
2. AI can help with building out RFPs and proposals.
In the future, it’s very likely that you’ll be able to use AI to build out RFPs and proposals. Just like AI can currently put together reports and summaries based on provided data, you can also use AI to take some of the legwork out of creating an RFP. That could look like collecting data from multiple sources and compiling it into one place, formatting your responses and other tasks.
3. AI can help Travelers remain compliant.
It’s oh-so-important that your Travelers remain compliant with your travel policy. Sometimes, that’s easier said than done, and even the most well-meaning Travelers are uncompliant in ways that fall through the cracks. AI can stop non-compliance before it happens. It can scan Travelers’ travel requests, bookings, communications and more. It can ensure that travel is always policy-compliant and prevent non-compliant bookings.
Additionally, even if you’re not using AI to stop non-compliance, AI can flag non-compliance after it happens, too. For example, it can point out inappropriately filed expenses, duplicate expenses or other acts of non-compliance. Then, you’re not left trying to find out why the numbers just don’t add up.
4. AI can help Travelers compile expenses.
Just like AI can keep an eye on Travelers’ travel bookings, it can also keep an eye on Travelers’ travel expenses. It can record them as needed. Once all expense data is recorded, AI can sort those expenses. It can provide reports that Travelers or Travel Managers would otherwise need to spend minutes or hours out of their days compiling.
AI can also analyze, not just record and sort, your travel expenses. It can find patterns that you might not recognize. For example, are certain Travelers always spending more money in one key area? Or do your travel expenses suddenly seem to spike for no reason during certain times of the year? AI can help you make sense of the wealth of data at your fingertips.
5. AI can find the best travel options to book.
Forget spending hours searching through various travel options, looking for a good deal or the best option for a hectic or complicated travel schedule. Give AI your primary details and what you need. It can scour the internet for the best options for those needs. From there, all you have to do is actually book.
And don’t worry about giving tools like ChatGPT complex or convoluted requests that seem a little difficult at first glance. It’s been shown to take on challenging itinerary requests that include days traveled, unique destinations, Traveler types and preferences and more.
6. AI can help Travel Managers and companies provide duty of care.
Just as it’s important for Travelers to remain compliant with their organization’s travel policy, both from a safety and a cost perspective, it’s also important for organizations to, in turn, fulfill their duty of care. It’s the organization’s responsibility to ensure the Traveler is as safe as possible any time they’re traveling on the company’s behalf.
AI can help with this. Looking at data such as forecasts, past behaviors and more, AI can better help you predict dangers or even just inconveniences for your Travelers, such as canceled flights or weather hazards.
Get the Latest Tech Tools to Drive Your Business Travel Program with JTB Business Travel
Now, more than ever, AI-powered travel booking tools and resources can ensure that every business travel trip is personalized to Travelers’ needs and preferences — while also being compliant and profitable for the company.
Leveraging the latest in tech tools to better your business travel program starts with partnering with a Travel Management Company that can guide you to the best travel tools for your needs. The team at JTB Business Travel is on the cutting edge of tech in the travel industry. You can be, too.
