Egencia enhances travel approval with first of its kind AI recommendation tool

Egencia has launched a unique recommendation tool that uses machine learning to automatically generate personalised settings for their customers’ travel approval processes. The new tool will significantly simplify and reduce the time that it takes for companies to set up travel approval workflows on Egencia’s platform. In addition, the company announced future plans to integrate with the Slack enterprise messaging app, adding a new channel for quick and easy travel approvals.

Setting up travel approval processes can be complex and time-consuming. Corporate travel managers must configure multiple variables across all travel options and different locations. Egencia’s travel approval recommendation tool generates tailored recommendations for approval workflows that can be implemented immediately across online, offline and mobile app bookings.

The approval recommendation tool analyses a company’s needs based on industry, geographical location, company size, projected annual travel spend and the number of travellers. A machine learning model, built with data from over 65,000 approval workflow combinations used by thousands of customers around the world, finds best practices that match the company’s profile. The result is an instant recommendation for a travel approval policy that can be implemented in just a few clicks.

Francisca Zanoguera, VP of Data and Analytics, comments: ‘Our customers expect us to provide data insights to help improve their travel programmes. We are going one step further to make it even easier to use those insights to quickly create personalised, effective approval policies. By powering our travel management tools with AI, we continue to deliver an intelligent travel experience for travel managers and travellers.’

Egencia’s most recent machine learning innovation was its market-leading dynamic hotel rate cap policy.

Egencia also plans to integrate the travel approval tool with business messaging app Slack in 2022. This will further streamline the approval process for those that approve travel, saving time and effort. Egencia’s data shows that approvers respond to requests quickly, with action taken on 70 per cent of approval requests within one hour, and on 90 per cent within 24 hours. The upcoming integration with Slack will let approvers choose to complete those tasks in their preferred channel, whether it’s the messaging app, online or via email. This makes it easier to continue to respond rapidly to travel requests and help to ensure efficient policy management.