The corporate travel sector is leaning into artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, during a panel at Business Travel Show America last week, moderator Chris Davis, managing editor for The BTN Group, asked the audience whether they are using AI: 75% replied yes.
According to panelist Keesup Choe, founder and CEO of PredictX, that percentage represents progress. But use doesn’t equal success.
“There is a new study by MIT talking about the fact that 95% of corporate AI initiatives fail,” Choe said during the “AI in Action: How Travel Managers Are Engineering Smarter Programs” panel.
Commitment and strategy matter as part of the AI big picture, too. According to Choe, it’s organizational commitment that will bring success, and buy-in has to come from the top.
Subscribe to our newsletter below
That’s partially because AI is not just a tool to pick up on occasion, Choe said. AI requires a learned skillset that comes with repeated use and exploration.
Panelists pointed out that use has to be strategic, too, in order to best serve businesses, travelers and employees with various use cases.
As Andres Fabris, co-founder and CEO of Traxo, explained, the use cases also vary—AI is multifaceted and can’t be lumped into one bucket.
“AI is obviously here. It’s moving quickly, but it’s not spread equally,” Fabris said.
“If we just kind of jumble it all up together and say, ‘Right, how’s it impacting the industry?’ You’re going to miss some of the nuances,” he said.
AI needs to be looked at on different levels, he said, proposing a breakdown of impact on the traveler, corporation, buyers and suppliers.
“I think AI is going to have a dramatically different impact across each of those buckets,” Fabris said. “And I think we can kind of naturally look at it in terms of pros and cons. So if we take those individually, we look at the traveler—we can all relate to that. We’re experiencing some of those benefits … in terms of extra insights, you’re able to take better trips. Research is done for you, productivity gains, but most of that today is really kind of at the chatbot level.”
Dabbling with chatbots is a “nice point of entry, but you can’t stop there,” he said.
It’s also important to keep a forward-looking mindset with regard to AI, according to Jennifer Steinke, director of travel, meetings and fleet for Moderna.
Steinke is building an assistant named TAMI, and she’s crafting this AI assistant with the future in mind.
“I’m not building this for today’s travelers,” Steinke said. “I’m building this for all the future travelers that come into my organization that aren’t going to accept the status quo as it is today.”
To work toward AI success, companies should strategize how to improve their programs, Choe said.
“It starts with humans,” he said. “So, have a vision of where you want to be in terms of your strategy … and then ask how AI can help you.”
