artificial intelligence

For Big Corporate Travel Management Companies Using Artificial Intelligence, Risk Mitigation Is Job No. 1 

Jay Campbell

Artificial intelligence promises efficiency gains and better, quicker corporate travel service. Use cases include email automation, swift answers to simple questions, and chatbot bookings and changes. For corporate travel management companies, though, achieving tantalizing outcomes requires extreme care. “Move fast and break things” this is not. Machine learning and predictive artificial intelligence are not new…

With A Stronger Balance Sheet, Amex GBT Expects To Grow By Outcompeting, Acquiring

Jay Campbell

American Express Global Business Travel expects to improve margins thanks to productivity gains, lower restructuring and debt costs, and a continued shift to proprietary online booking tools. It’s also looking for acquisition opportunities that executives and company documents released Tuesday called “accretive,” “incremental,” and “strategic.”  Speaking under the condition of anonymity a year ago, one…

Squeezed By Some Airlines, Flight Centre Tweaks Tech To Support Others

Jay Campbell

How much more can a travel management company make when corporate customers use its proprietary booking technology? Flight Centre Travel Group’s head of corporate travel wouldn’t specifically say, but his answer during a Tuesday evening conference call with equities analysts was instructive. With its own tools, the TMC has to cover maintenance and development costs….

Travel Management Company Consolidation Looms

Jay Campbell

In a Jan. 29 Business Travel News column, SAP Concur Travel president Charlie Sultan  predicted that distribution changes would “disrupt” travel management company revenue streams and combine with tech investment pressures to prompt “further TMC consolidation.” He didn’t cover Concur’s role. Parent SAP considered buying CWT but decided against it last week, according to sources…

Automation Central To CTM Plan For Doubled Profits In Five Years

Jay Campbell

Execs from travel management company Corporate Travel Management on Tuesday outlined a five-year goal of doubling profits thanks to productivity gains and 10 percent annual organic revenue growth. The guidance doesn’t account for any acquisitions — a “significant opportunity” for which CTM is “well-positioned” as industry consolidation is “really likely,” according to managing director Jamie…

Dispatch 9

Team Dime

Reaction: Responding to Scott Gillespie’s Op Ed on how today’s corporate travel market demands “long-sighted travel policies” prioritizing value and sustainability over traditional cost-cutting, readers generally agreed with the need for change. Microsoft’s Eric Bailey echoed the goal of reducing emissions and minimizing low-value trips but suggested different methods. He recommended carbon taxes and budget…

Op Ed: Brandon Strauss On A Skeptic’s View Of Generative Artificial Intelligence 

Brandon Strauss

Brandon Strauss of CapTrav and KesselRun Corporate Travel Solutions explains why he’s in “watch and learn” mode when it comes to generative artificial intelligence.  Claude Shannon, a computer scientist and founder of information theory, published “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” in 1948, which defined how messages are carried from sender to receiver. This theory became…

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