Travel technology business Amadeus has partnered with Microsoft and Accenture to streamline corporate travel booking through generative AI.
The partnership will develop AI-powered integrations between Amadeus’s travel and expense platform Cytric Easy and Microsoft 365. Accenture is collaborating with Amadeus to create an AI travel assistant within Amadeus’ Cytric Easy platform. The assistant will align travellers’ preferences with employers’ policies for a smoother and more cost-effective experience.
The generative AI-powered interactive assistant will utilise Microsoft technologies. These encompass GPT models from Azure Open AI Service, Microsoft 365 and Teams. These technologies will aid corporate travellers with aspects of their journey, from planning, booking and pre-departure to the post-trip experience. The chatbot will engage in a conversational style to ask users for clarifications and propose suggestions for the most appropriate travel or travel itinerary selections.
Rudy Daniello, Executive Vice President at Amadeus Cytric Solutions, commented:
The new Generative AI-powered chatbot will offer an enhanced way to book business travel, moving from a standard sequential display with predetermined filters to a dynamic, interactive conversational interface powered by ChatGPT. When fully realized, business travellers will be able to book trips with even greater ease, saving time.”
Amadeus is also collaborating with Microsoft on a new plugin for Microsoft 365 Copilot. The Cytric Easy plugin for Microsoft 365 Copilot is currently in development. It attempts to make it simple for coworkers to align and book travel itineraries in a uniform workflow within Microsoft 365 using natural language prompts.
“We are at an extraordinary moment in the technology landscape, where AI is reshaping industries like travel and transforming how we work,” said Feliz Montpellier, General Manager, Global Partners at Microsoft. “Through expanded integrations between Microsoft and Amadeus, we will create more value for corporations and much more personalised and productive experiences for travellers.”
The partnership combines Amadeus’ expertise in the travel ecosystem while leveraging Cytric’s content and knowledge of the traveller and data on business booking policies and preferences. These new AI-powered tools intend to transform the corporate travel booking experience into a more intuitive offering, improving efficiency and employee satisfaction.
“Accenture’s collaboration with Amadeus and Microsoft accelerates the integration of generative AI-powered solutions in the travel industry, driving innovation and reinvention,” added Miguel Flecha, managing director at Accenture and account lead for Amadeus. “Cytric Easy offers the corporate travel world new levels of efficiency, personalisation and control whilst transforming the entire experience for the traveller.”
Enterprise-Targeting 365 Copilot Launches November 1
Microsoft finally announced the long-anticipated release dates for its AI-powered productivity tool Copilot this month.
Copilot was released for consumers on Windows this week, while Copilot 365 will roll out for enterprise customers on November 1. Microsoft also introduced a soft relaunch for Copilot. As well as a snazzy new logo, Microsoft added that it was rolling all the individual Copilots together as one unified solution “for a consistent user experience” rather than what had been initially intended as separate Copilot AIs for different services, namely Windows 11, Bing and Edge.
What 365 Copilot offers beyond Microsoft Copilot is commercial data protection, guaranteed security, privacy and compliance, the AI-powered Microsoft 365 Chat, and integration across the Microsoft 365 Apps.
365 Copilot can offer real-time summaries and action items off the back of Teams meetings. Copilot can also produce new Word projects or blogs by redirecting it towards business chats and files, which it can infer as prompts. It can visualise data or projections in Excel. In Outlook, Copilot can customise any email to match a user’s specific style and tone of voice, including personalised sign-off.
This week, Microsoft also announced its Teams-integrated immersive meetings solution Mesh will launch in public preview in October. Users can join immersive spaces using tools already accessible, whether via Microsoft Teams or a custom immersive space in Mesh. Immersive spaces will be available initially through a PC or Meta Quest VR headsets.
