What Are AI Travel Agents? Plus, 5 Picks for Corporations

Every traveler will experience flight delays or cancellations at some point. These travel disruptions can be especially costly in the corporate world, where employees need to make it to meetings, important presentations, and events.

If an employee’s flight to a trade show is cancelled at 5 a.m., they need to be on the next available flight. And if they’re in the air when, say, a connecting flight is cancelled, then they won’t be able to call for help or rebook until after the plane lands. And by then, it could be too late.

AI travel agents are equipped to solve issues like these in real time. Before travelers can even open their airline app, an AI travel agent will have already detected the cancellation, searched for alternative routes, given them the option to rebook on the next flight out, and even updated their hotel check-in.

In addition to proactively handling disruptions, AI travel agents can also enforce policies and manage expenses before problems reach travelers or finance teams.

This guide covers how AI travel agents work, the key benefits for corporate programs, and how to evaluate leading platforms.

What Is an AI Travel Agent?

An AI travel agent is software that handles corporate travel bookings and related expenses on behalf of employees — automating tasks that traditionally require manual effort or human intervention. These systems autonomously integrate policy enforcement, expense automation, and real-time compliance into corporate workflows. They can also analyze traveler preferences, company policies, and market data to surface relevant options, support bookings, and help handle disruptions.

Corporate AI travel agents connect directly to enterprise resource planning systems, apply spending controls before transactions are complete, and maintain compliance across thousands of employees.

How AI Travel Agents Work

AI travel agents rely on machine learning (ML) models trained on travel data like flight schedules, pricing patterns, booking behaviors, and company policies. These models may also have natural language processing (NLP) capabilities that let users book conversationally rather than through form-based interfaces.

For example, travelers can say “Chicago Monday, Dallas Tuesday, home Wednesday,” and the system will interpret this as a multi-city trip, search compliant options within spending limits, and generate complete itineraries.

More advanced platforms, such as Navan, use a multi-agent architecture in which specialized AI components work in coordination. For example, Navan’s Cognition platform uses a network of specialist AI agents — such as the Travel Policy Agent, which works silently to set dynamic policies and help travelers find in-policy options, and the Expense Agent, which reads receipt images and applies GL codes.

Benefits of AI Travel Agents for Corporate Travel

AI travel agents save time for travelers and finance teams by automating bookings, handling disruptions before they become problems, and eliminating manual expense work. Some of the core benefits they can deliver to your corporate travel management program include:

1. Faster Booking With Intelligent Recommendations

AI analyzes hundreds of flight and hotel options simultaneously, applying traveler preferences, company-negotiated rates, and policy parameters to surface the best choices first. Navan’s AI Sort 3.0, for instance, analyzes more than 35 data points per search, including individual preferences, past booking behavior, and real-time market data.

2. Proactive Disruption Management

AI-powered systems continuously monitor itineraries, detect issues before travelers notice problems, and often complete rebooking before the original flight cancellation appears on airport monitors. When airlines issue travel waivers due to strikes or severe weather, platforms like Navan proactively notify affected travelers and provide a free path to change or cancel their trip.

3. Automated Expense Handling That Eliminates Manual Entry

AI expense agents auto-categorize transactions, match receipts, apply general ledger codes, and flag policy violations at the point of card swipe. Navan’s Expense Agent, for example, reads line items on a receipt and automatically applies the correct GL code and expense category based on company policy, capturing over 130 unique data elements from booking through reconciliation.

4. Policy Compliance Without Friction

Compliant options surface first in search results, with non-compliant choices flagged or blocked based on company preferences. This proactive enforcement proves more effective than post-booking audits.

5. 24/7 Support That Scales Instantly

AI assistants provide instant help with routine issues such as flight changes, hotel modifications, and receipt retrieval, while complex situations are escalated to human specialists. Navan’s Ava, for instance, resolves common issues in seconds. It maintains a high customer satisfaction (CSAT) that’s on par with human agents.

6. Intelligent Personalization

AI learns from every booking to make the next one faster. The system tracks traveler preferences — preferred airlines, seat locations, hotel chains, room types, and amenities — and applies them automatically to every search. A frequent traveler who always books aisle seats on Delta and stays at Marriott properties sees those options appear first, without having to enter preferences manually each time.

Top 5 AI Travel Agents for Corporations in 2026

The right AI travel agent platform depends on your company size, existing tech stack, and whether you need travel booking, expense management, or both.

1. Navan

Navan is an all-in-one business travel and expense (T&E) management platform serving over 10,000 companies, including Canva, HelloFresh, DoorDash, Duolingo, and Steelcase. Navan became the first T&E company to integrate generative AI across its infrastructure in February 2023.

Navan’s AI capabilities are powered by Navan Cognition, an agentic AI framework built on a unified data foundation that captures more than 130 unique data elements connecting travel intent with final spend. Rather than a single chatbot, Cognition uses a network of hundreds of specialist AI agents that collaborate in real time — each with a distinct area of expertise, from flight changes to loyalty programs to expense policies.

Key AI agent capabilities include:

• Ava (AI Travel Agent): Provides instant 24/7 support for booking changes, policy questions, and travel disruptions across any content source — GDS, NDC, or direct connect
• Proactive waiver monitoring: Automatically detects airline waivers during strikes or severe weather, notifies impacted travelers, and provides rebooking options before disruptions occur
• Automated hotel coordination: Contacts hotels before arrival to confirm payment details and hold rooms for delayed travelers
• Expense Agent: Uses OCR to read every line item on receipts, automatically applies GL codes and expense categories, and generates compliant descriptions
• Audit Agent: Reviews every transaction in real time to surface only the spend that needs attention, detecting out-of-policy purchases and AI-generated receipts

AI Supervisor Agents monitor conversations in real time, double-checking answers and forcing reconsideration when needed.

2. SAP Concur

SAP Concur is an enterprise T&E management platform serving millions of employees globally.

Concur’s Booking Agent operates within SAP’s Joule AI copilot and handles travel booking requests through natural language input. Employees can type requests like “Book me a flight to Chicago on Thursday morning” and receive policy-compliant travel options. The agent analyzes traveler preferences, company policy rules, and pricing to surface available options.

Beyond booking, Concur’s AI surfaces policy-compliant recommendations based on historical booking patterns and automates expense report generation through optical character recognition. The platform extracts transaction details from receipts, matches expenses to corporate card charges, and flags potential duplicates before submission. Organizations with existing SAP ERP infrastructure can leverage native integrations for policy enforcement.

3. American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT)

Amex GBT is a traditional travel management company serving enterprise clients through white-glove service models for executive travel and complex group coordination.

The platform launched Amex GBT AI Assistant in 2024, providing 24/7 support for routine booking modifications while maintaining access to human travel counselors. The AI Assistant handles common requests such as flight changes, hotel rebookings, and itinerary updates through natural language conversations.

It also monitors bookings for disruptions and proactively alerts travelers to delays or cancellations. When situations require expertise beyond AI capabilities — such as complex multi-leg international routing or premium cabin upgrades — the system escalates to dedicated human counselors.

4. Emburse

Emburse is an expense management and AP automation platform that provides AI-powered expense management rather than a dedicated AI travel agent. While Emburse Book (formerly Certify Travel) offers online travel booking with policy compliance, it doesn’t include AI-powered assistance.

However, Emburse has AI capabilities for its post-booking expense automation. The platform’s ML models automatically categorize expenses based on merchant codes and historical patterns, detect duplicate submissions, and flag merchants frequently associated with personal purchases. Smart Audit analyzes receipts in real time to identify missing information and policy violations before employees submit reports.

Emburse serves organizations that need robust expense automation and AP workflow, though organizations seeking AI travel booking assistance will need to combine Emburse with other travel platforms.

5. Perk (Formerly TravelPerk)

Perk is a travel management platform with a mobile-first design.

Perk’s AI assistant responds to booking changes, flight status inquiries, and policy questions through WhatsApp, Slack, or web chat. The AI learns individual traveler preferences over time — preferred airlines, seat selections, and hotel chains — and surfaces these choices automatically in search results. It handles routine requests such as cancellation processing and receipt retrieval instantly without human intervention.

The assistant integrates with Perk’s FlexiPerk feature, helping travelers understand flexible cancellation options and rebooking policies through conversational explanations. Implementation typically takes 4 to 8 weeks.

Addressing Enterprise Concerns About AI

Sophisticated AI-powered travel platforms are addressing most common concerns about AI in corporate travel through hybrid AI-human models.

Service Gaps: The Chatbot Loop Fear

A common concern is that AI implementation means travelers get stuck in endless chatbot loops during critical situations. Enterprise AI travel agents work differently from consumer chatbots, though. Hybrid models pair AI for routine requests with human specialists who immediately take complex cases. Navan’s Ava demonstrates this approach by automating what can be automated while ensuring expert agents remain available for the most complex needs.

Policy Control: Unauthorized Booking Concerns

AI travel agents enforce policies more consistently than human agents do, thanks to real-time validation during booking. Every search result is checked against company rules before it reaches the traveler, so unauthorized bookings and out-of-policy expenses are caught at the point of search rather than after the fact.

User Experience: Adoption Challenges

Adoption has always been a challenge for traditional corporate travel tools. The difference with modern platforms is the user experience. Platforms like Navan offer consumer-grade interfaces that mirror the booking experiences travelers already use for personal travel, with mobile-first design and integrated expense capture that eliminates manual reporting. When business travel feels as easy as booking a vacation, adoption follows.

How to Choose the Right AI Travel Agent for Your Organization

When evaluating AI travel agent platforms, focus on three things: measurable AI performance, how quickly issues escalate to humans, and whether AI is built into the core product or added on top.

1. Look for Specific Metrics, Not Generic Claims

Ask vendors to provide measurable performance data, including customer satisfaction scores for AI interactions, AI resolution rates, and monthly interaction volume. Leading vendors such as Navan report 96% CSAT and serve more than 10,000 companies.

2. Test How Well the AI Agent Escalates to Humans

During vendor demonstrations, request scenarios that require AI to escalate to humans, such as complex multi-city rebookings or policy exceptions for urgent executive travel. Evaluate how smoothly the AI transfers to human specialists and how much context the human has when they take over.

3. Ask Whether the AI Functions are Built-In or Bolted-On

Distinguish AI that comes built into the platform’s core architecture from third-party chatbot tools bolted onto legacy systems. Unified data foundations that integrate travel bookings, calendar meetings, expense receipts, and policy rules give AI agents the full context they need.

Explore Navan’s AI-Powered Travel Solutions

Corporate travel has long included time lost searching for compliant flights, stress from last-minute cancellations, and tedious manual expense reports. AI travel agents eliminate that friction at its source, turning T&E from an administrative burden into a smooth experience.

Navan’s approach is built on a simple philosophy: AI should work for the traveler. Navan removes the downstream chaos that consumes finance teams and frustrates employees by solving problems at the point of booking.

This is made possible by Navan’s unified T&E data core, which captures more than 130 unique data elements connecting travel intent with final spend. That rich context powers Navan Cognition, an agentic AI framework that coordinates specialist AI agents across bookings, expenses, support, and compliance. The result is a platform that handles tens of thousands of sensitive monthly interactions while avoiding critical hallucinations entirely.

The question for business leaders is no longer whether to adopt AI for T&E, but how quickly they can move beyond the hype to capture real, measurable value. With Navan, that future is already here.

Competitive data was collected as of February 2026 and is subject to change or update.