AI Insights: Generative AI to drive efficiencies in business travel

We want to help you keep up with how brands across the travel industry are exploring - and using - generative artificial intelligence solutions from companies including OpenAI, Google and more. So we're surveying technology professionals at leading travel brands, and we'll be publishing their answers periodically here. 

John Pelant, chief experience and technology officer of CWT, is the latest to offer his insights on generative AI and its impact on the travel industry.

We began working with generative  AI in … CWT has been working extensively with AI for more than five years, particularly in our virtual assistant and intelligent display products. And with generative AI and large language models since the start of 2023.  After six months of research and exploration we’re confident we can launch multiple products that will use it. 

Our current work with generative AI is focused on … CWT is past the research stage with generative AI. We have agreed to a partnership with a leading supplier of generative AI and are actively developing for both internal and client-facing products. We have recently completed a worldwide hackathon across our operations and technology teams where we brainstormed 110 ideas, prototyped 25 of them in 12 hours and have identified several for productization.  We see the most promise in these areas: 

• CWT Messaging: Our hybrid virtual assistant will be using generative AI before the end of 2023; 
• Sales process optimization: We see significant potential in the speed-up of complete client proposals, marketing and acceleration of client onboarding;
• Travel agent assistance: a combination of language translation, policy, offer, automated replies and training;  
• Document standardization: summarizing documents from our worldwide client base into CWT standard templates. 

The biggest challenge for us related to generative AI  is … ensuring that our clients are protected against the downsides of generative AI, so-called hallucinations and data protection issues. Our extensive research and development has focused on applying the right compliance frameworks to protect our clients and their travelers from these downsides, while maintaining the usability and efficiencies generative AI can deliver. 

For the travel industry overall, we see the most potential for generative AI to … Redefine the way businesses optimize their travel processes. We envision a future where travel management becomes truly intelligent and tailored to each traveler's preferences. From automatically generating personalized itineraries to providing real-time, data-driven recommendations, an AI-driven approach will not only streamline travel arrangements but also enhance the overall travel experience.  

Generative AI can greatly enhance customer experiences and satisfaction. As a global organization servicing travelers across many markets and languages, language translation and cultural understanding capabilities can bridge communication gaps and foster deeper connections with local communities.  

Finally, we believe a big opportunity lies within supercharging our virtual assistant to better understand each client's unique preferences, previous travel patterns and specific business requirements, offering a fully personalized and intelligent experience. 

One year from now we expect to be using generative AI for …  multiple products, both directly from ourselves and via our strategic partners. Generative AI will be delivering enhanced efficiencies, faster time to market for AI solutions and adding a real wow factor to our client facing products.  We expect significant volumes of our transactions to be managed by hybrid human-AI processes.