Relevance of AI in the HRS Service Offering 

The managed travel channel traditionally involves a high number of contributing providers and/or solutions to enable the traveler`s trip. While the individual systems are tech based and create relevant data points, the problem is that there is little to no connectivity facilitating the capability to access, share and aggregate the data. Connecting the trip end-to-end and creating a seamless flow of data is key for AI to perform its magic. 

In an ecosystem of shared data, some data is more relevant than other, and some only makes sense if brought into the right context and structure. Normalizing, deduplicating and aggregating the data in relation to a certain trip while in concert with defined corporate policy is the next step in getting closer to an AI powered program. 

Based on connectivity and the consolidation of data, ML can identify patterns in any travel program.  By enriching these patterns with market data, leaders see information on the heartbeat of their program in real time, while also gaining from more accurate predictive developments in budget, destination and travel behavior. Moreover, AI can even model different scenarios for programs, “calibrating” the program based upon global and regional priorities and enabling decision making and automatically configuring the procurement platform and connected OBE.  

Driving program compliance is key for managed programs to create transparency on spend, ensure duty of care and mitigate risk. Gen AI enables the capability to identify travel patterns and preferences of homogenous traveler groups, aka personas, to facilitate a more tailored program. By sourcing the relevant properties and presenting them in a persona-based order,  travel program leaders can boost adoption and satisfaction. 

The best expense report is the one that doesn’t have to be filed. Therefore, AI even helps to make bothersome expense reports a thing of the past. The fully-integrated payment solution allows travelers to walk away without having to pay upon check out. The digital invoice collection paired with OCR recognition and AI audits invoices for compliance and automatically triggers either correction with the hotel or enriches the invoice data with other relevant data points related to the trip to Level 3 quality. Downstream benefits include relevant data for VAT reclaim exercise and further procurement optimization.