American Express Global Business Travel introduces new AI-powered solutions

The company introduced an LLM supported chat and NLQ to reporting dashboards 

American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has unveiled a couple of new AI-powered customer solutions. 

The first rollout leverages the use of large language models (LLM) for travellers to get on-demand support through more intuitive interactions with a virtual agent that understands and responds to complex requests more naturally. 

The second solution introduced by the company introduced a natural language query (NLQ) to its data and reporting feature Egencia Analytics Studio to make it easier for travel managers to access travel programme data by asking questions in plain language.

The LLM-powered virtual agent, available to Egencia customers, was trained using help center content to generate highly accurate and contextually appropriate responses. 

It can handle inquiries in ten different languages including English, French, Spanish and German as well as various regions. 

Questions it can answer include “how do I reset my password?” or “how do I add my frequent flyer number to my account?” 

During testing, the Amex GBT analytics and data science team found the virtual agent increased efficiency and enhanced the customer self-service experience for travellers. 

Amex GBT data showed that nearly a third of customers who used the virtual agent during a trial phase were able to self-service without proceeding to wait for a travel consultant. 

The virtual agent experience at Amex GBT was first introduced in 2020 and the addition of LLM supported chat is the most recent evolution of its capabilities. 

The NLQ data and reporting feature has been designed to make data analysis simpler for travel managers using Egencia. 

Through a search field in the Analytics Studio dashboard, travel managers can locate data insights now by asking direct questions, such as “what is the quarterly spend for the last three quarters.” 

The feature allows more than one data metric per question, such as “What is spend, transaction count, average ticket price (ATP) for air in city Paris 2024?”

John Sturino, senior vice president of travel products and engineering at Amex GBT, said: “Amex GBT has been using AI for years to enhance the customer experience. 

"We will continue to focus on using the most advanced technologies to create the most seamless experiences for travellers, arrangers or travel managers."

He added: "AI gives us the opportunity to empower our customers with smarter, more intuitive ways to manage their travel preferences.” 

The NLQ feature is currently in beta with Amex GBT planning to fully release in 2026.