Travel engagement platform Tripism has launched a new "intelligence" layer that can both offer recommendations and guidance to travelers as well as program insights for travel managers, the company announced.
The newly launched Tripism Intelligence is "a natural progression of what we've been doing," Tripism CEO Adam Kerr said. It incorporates companies' policies, preferred suppliers and travel and expense data as well as search behavior, usage patterns, feedback and reviews from travelers, the company said. That data typically is fragmented for companies, making it difficult for AI models to work effectively with it, Kerr said.
"AI is becoming a commodity," he said. "Everyone has access to these models. The hardest piece is making sense of program information."
For travel managers, Tripism Intelligence can respond to questions on spending and compliance levels and recommend actions to improve savings and program satisfaction, according to the company. It also can flag potential problems and recommend corrective actions, Kerr said.
For example, a travel manager preparing for a quarterly business review with a hotel supplier could ask the platform to pull together information needed for the meeting in minutes, he said. If there is a specific issue—such as an expensive hotel that is receiving poor reviews or satisfaction levels from travelers—it could recommend such actions as putting that hotel on a watchlist, he said.
"Rather than just being a rear-view mirror to look at what happened in the past, it can improve efficiency of spend and traveler satisfaction," Kerr said.
For travelers, the platform can provide personalized guidance around policies and preferred suppliers. For example, a traveler could inquire whether they are allowed to fly business class on a certain route and receive a response detailing exactly why under policy.
Recommendations are specific to the traveler and company policy, Kerr said. A traveler could ask for a preferred hotel that would allow them to work out during their trip, and the platform can look for hotels that are close to a park with a good jogging trail or with reviews that highlight a quality gym, he said. If a traveler asks how to get from the airport to a company headquarters, the platform can not only map out the route but also provide guidance around what best fits within policy—if a company offers a car service or has a sustainability policy that makes a train the better option.
"This is not another policy bot," Kerr said. "It's a much wider and sophisticated tool."
Tripism Intelligence can be accessed within the Tripism platform itself, within an agent-to-agent connection if the company has an enterprisewide solution or through Slack and Teams. When a recommendation leads to a booking, the platform links back out to a company's preferred tool, Kerr said.
As Tripism does not work off supplier commissions or its own preferred inventories, that also ensures recommendations are the best fit for program objectives and traveler needs rather than any other sort of economic model, according to the company. Because it works with multiple travel programs, it can also help travel managers identify whether issues are specific to their program or an industrywide basis, the company said.