Thrust Carbon has launched a new "behavioral-change
tool" designed to reach travelers as they are making travel decisions and
guide them toward more sustainable and economic travel options, the company
announced.
Thrust's EngageAI tool taps travelers' itineraries and local
travel knowledge to message travelers through a variety of channels, including
point-of-sale booking tools, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp and email, to nudge them
at decision points during their planning and journey. For example, the tool can
use itinerary, flight, safety and immigration queue data to message travelers
when they walk through an arrivals gate at an airport to encourage them to use
trains to get to their destination when they are a faster and lower-cost
option.
At its launch, EngageAI is available "with all major
[travel management companies] supported," and work is underway for
"deep integrations" with TMC apps, according to Thrust.
The tool focuses on companies' most frequent travelers, as
the company noted changing their behavior can have the biggest impact on
emissions and savings.
"As the data source of $100 billion of annual travel
spend, we're able to reliably predict who will emit and what is needed to
change their behavior," Thrust Carbon founder and CEO Kit Aspen said in a
statement. "Most emissions don't come from one-off journeys. They are
shaped by repeated decisions, and if you can influence those decisions, you
change how the whole program performs."