5 Best AI Travel Assistants for Smarter T&E Control

AI travel assistants promise to handle the chaos of corporate travel autonomously. But what does that look like in practice?

Picture a sales rep racing through the terminal for the first leg of a flight, when they get a notification that their connecting flight was just canceled. Now they’re refreshing their airline app, scanning for alternative connections, texting their assistant, and wondering if the hotel will cancel the reservation due to the late arrival — all while the first leg of their flight is boarding.

Corporate travel is full of moments like these. But beyond the emergencies, travel managers also handle hundreds of routine disruptions every week, from rebookings to policy checks and chasing travelers for receipts. AI travel assistants are designed to handle it all. The best ones can even make changes autonomously — booking, modifying, and canceling travel without requiring manual confirmation.

The following guide evaluates the leading options based on what they can actually do, so travel managers and finance leaders can determine what makes sense for their organization.

What Are AI Travel Assistants?

AI travel assistants are autonomous systems that help travel managers handle corporate travel workflows. They support the travel management process across booking and policy compliance to disruption management and expense reconciliation, with minimal manual intervention from travelers or travel managers.

Unlike traditional booking tools that require users to search, compare, and make decisions manually, AI assistants can analyze preferences, enforce policies in real time, and execute transactions autonomously. AI assistants guide decisions before transactions occur, preventing policy violations at the source rather than flagging them weeks later during expense reviews.

5 Best AI Travel Assistants

AI travel assistant features vary significantly across vendors. Some platforms offer conversational interfaces that provide recommendations but require travelers to complete bookings manually. Others offer agentic AI systems that execute complex transactions autonomously.

The following platforms represent different approaches to AI implementation, ranging from unified travel and expense systems to specialized solutions focused on specific capabilities.

1. Ava by Navan

Navan became the first travel and expense company to integrate generative AI across its infrastructure. Navan’s AI assistant, Ava, operates as an agentic AI platform powered by Navan Cognition.

Over the intervening years, Ava has handled many thousands of customer interactions, achieving high customer satisfaction scores.

Platform Architecture

Ava integrates directly into Navan’s booking and support flows, automatically handling complex processes including refunds, travel cancellations, seat upgrades, and disruption management.

Navan’s Ava is not just another FAQ wrapper or a chatbot being marketed as “AI-powered.” The underlying Navan Cognition technology employs specialized AI agents working collaboratively across the travel and expense lifecycle. This enterprise-grade agentic AI framework includes AI supervisors that keep agents on task, so that travelers receive accurate, policy-compliant assistance.

AI Travel Assistant Capabilities

• AI Sort 3.0: Navan’s AI-powered search ranking system analyzes over 35 data points to present the most relevant options first. When surfacing options, it considers individual preferences, past booking behavior, real-time market data, and company policy. A full 80% of bookings are made from the top ten recommendations that it presents to travelers.
• Checkout Intelligence: Currently in early rollout, this feature automatically scans across providers and complex ticketing structures at the moment of booking to find the single best value. It can surface other options such as a lower price, more flexible terms, or added perks for the exact same choice.
• Travel Policy Agent: This agent sets dynamic travel policies based on real-time market rates. It also automatically adjusts spend limits for different routes and cities, while highlighting in-policy options and available rewards.
• Proactive Disruption Management: This feature monitors airline waivers and travel disruptions in real time. It notifies affected travelers immediately with rebooking options before they’re even aware of the issue.

Expense Management AI Agents

• Expense Agent: Instantly reads and understands line items on receipts, automatically applying correct GL codes and expense categories based on company policy. Generates clear, compliant, context-rich descriptions for every transaction.
• Audit Agent: Automates compliance and fraud detection, instantly reviewing every transaction to surface only spend requiring attention. It can also identify out-of-policy purchases, excessive tipping, and AI-generated fake receipts.
• Reconciliation Agent: Instantly matches personal card payments to corresponding travel bookings. It also reconciles all payments in one place, providing a complete financial picture and a faster month-end close.
• VAT Reclamation Agent: Automates tax data transfer and review process. It ensures accurate data processing to help recover maximum refund amounts while saving hours of manual transaction review.

Best for: Mid-market to enterprise organizations seeking unified travel, expense, and corporate card programs with production-proven AI capabilities and policy enforcement tools.

2. Booking Agent by SAP Concur

SAP Concur launched its Booking Agent as part of the company’s broader Joule AI initiative. The introduction of the Booking Agent brought conversational AI capabilities to its established travel and expense management platform.

Booking Agent provides natural-language booking assistance, allowing travelers to request trips with simple prompts like “Book me a flight to New York on Thursday morning” and receive policy-compliant options with real-time price breakdowns.

AI Travel Assistant Capabilities

The Booking Agent is one component of SAP’s network of Joule agents designed to work collaboratively across business functions. Beyond the Booking Agent, SAP Concur has announced additional AI agents in various stages of rollout:

• Receipt Analysis Agent uses enhanced data inference to populate missing receipt details, predict expense types, and calculate totals even when line items are incomplete.
• Meeting Location Agent will assist with identifying optimal meeting locations based on participant locations and company preferences.
• Expense Report Validation Agent to automate expense report review and validation processes.
• AI-Generated Receipt Detection: A configurable check that scans receipts for signs of AI generation or online creation, automatically flagging suspicious images for auditor review.

Platform Architecture

The Booking Agent is embedded directly within the Concur Travel interface and built on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). It is powered by the Joule AI copilot framework nd grounded in SAP Business Data Cloud and Knowledge Graph.

Best for: Large enterprises with existing SAP ecosystem investments requiring T&E management with AI-enhanced workflows. Organizations should prepare with a robust change management process, as some users report a steep learning curve and an unintuitive interface.

3. Otto The Agent (Built on Spotnana)

Otto operates as a standalone AI travel assistant that integrates with Spotnana’s travel platform, Direct Travel’s servicing capabilities, and Booking.com’s inventory. It positions itself as an “Executive Assistant for every business traveler.”

AI Travel Assistant Capabilities

Otto connects directly to travelers’ calendars, learns preferences, and proactively plans trips. The system handles flights, hotels, and loyalty program details automatically, completing full travel transactions within the user experience without redirecting to external booking sites. Key capabilities include:

• Proactive trip planning: Analyzes the traveler’s calendar to identify upcoming travel needs and suggests itineraries before travelers request them.
• Preference learning: Adapts to individual traveler patterns, including airline preferences, hotel chains, seat selections, and booking timing.
• Autonomous booking: Completes transactions end-to-end, including payment details, without requiring travelers to re-enter information.
• Disruption management: Handles rebooking automatically when flights are cancelled or delayed.

Platform Architecture

Otto operates through web, mobile, and email interfaces, including deep integrations with Microsoft 365 and Google Calendar. For complex scenarios that require human expertise, the system provides a seamless handoff to Direct Travel counselors, preserving full context.

Best for: Unmanaged business travel segment and organizations seeking personalized, conversational booking experiences with calendar integration and preference learning.

4. Perk (Formerly TravelPerk)

Perk, which rebranded from TravelPerk in November 2025, describes itself as an “AI-native platform.” Rather than offering a named AI travel assistant, Perk’s AI capabilities primarily embed AI into administrative workflows across travel booking, expense processing, and invoice management.

AI Travel Assistant Capabilities

Perk’s AI functionality centers on eliminating what the company calls “shadow work” — the invisible administrative tasks that drain productivity. The platform’s AI handles:

• Automated expense capture: AI-powered receipt scanning that automatically captures, categorizes, and extracts data from expense photos
• Transaction matching: Automatic matching of transactions to receipts and trip bookings
• Invoice processing: AI-driven coding and routing of invoices for approval
• Policy compliance: Automated flagging of policy breaches and spend discrepancies
• Travel booking optimization: Policy-compliant booking recommendations

Platform Architecture

Perk operates an AI-native platform built on multi-cloud infrastructure with containerized applications. The system features integrations with ERP, HRIS, and expense tools through an open API ecosystem.

Best for: Organizations that prefer background automation over task-specific or traveler-specific AI assistance.

5. Ramp Intelligence

Ramp offers an AI platform that focuses primarily on expense automation and financial operations, with travel booking as a secondary capability within its broader spend management system.

Rather than offering a dedicated AI travel assistant, Ramp provides “Ramp Intelligence” — AI agents designed specifically for controllers and finance teams to enforce company expense policies and prevent fraud.

AI Agent Capabilities

Ramp’s AI agents apply context-aware decision-making to financial workflows, including:

• Expense approval agents: Automatically approve low-risk expenses or provide recommendations with rationale to approvers
• Fraud detection: Real-time scanning of transactions for anomalies and AI-generated fake receipts
• Policy enforcement: Instant alerts for suspicious receipts, invoices, and policy violations
• Employee support: Conversational AI that answers employee questions about spend policy without requiring finance team intervention
• Receipt matching: OCR technology that automatically extracts data from receipts and matches them to corresponding card transactions

Travel Capabilities

While Ramp offers travel booking functionality, its AI capabilities in this area are limited compared to dedicated travel platforms:

• Hotel price monitoring: Automatically rebooks hotels when prices drop by $50 or more
• Policy-compliant booking: Basic policy enforcement during travel booking
• Automated categorization: AI-powered expense categorization for travel transactions

Best for: Organizations prioritizing expense automation and corporate card management over comprehensive travel features.

Disclaimer: Competitive data was collected as of February 10, 2026 and is subject to change or update.

How to Choose the Right AI Travel Assistant

Choosing the right AI travel assistant depends on your organizational priorities, existing technology investments, and the maturity of your current T&E management processes. For travel managers evaluating AI travel assistants, prioritize platforms offering across:

Action capability vs. conversational interface

When comparing AI travel assistants, the most critical distinction is the scope of autonomous action capabilities.

Advanced agentic AI systems like Navan’s Ava can execute complex transactions, including refunds, travel cancellations, seat upgrades, and travel disruption solutions without human intervention.

Conversational AI tools primarily provide recommendations requiring manual execution. When you’re evaluating platforms, request demonstrations of transaction workflows, including booking changes, cancellations, and disruption management.

Escalation and guardrails for complex scenarios

No AI system can handle all scenarios autonomously, so escalation workflows are critical. Assess how your shortlisted platforms handle situations where AI can’t resolve issues. Questions to ask include:

• How long has the AI been in full-scale production with real customers?
• What percentage of interactions does the AI handle without human intervention?
• Does the system provide smooth handoff to human agents with full context?
• What enterprise-grade guardrails prevent critical errors?

Real-time policy enforcement over reactive auditing Real-time expense monitoring powered by AI enables proactive compliance by identifying deviations from established thresholds and raising concerns immediately.

The key capabilities you should evaluate include automated policy enforcement integrated into booking workflows. You also want real-time spend visibility that eliminates the traditional 30–60 day reporting lag. It’s also helpful to have dynamic policy capabilities that adjust based on market conditions without requiring IT intervention.