BCD Travel has forged a landmark strategic alliance with AI startup SkyLink to revolutionize the corporate travel experience by introducing a fully autonomous, chat-based travel assistant. This cutting-edge AI-powered solution is designed to streamline corporate bookings, manage itineraries, and provide real-time assistance directly through familiar communication platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Slack. The collaboration aims to significantly enhance productivity, ensure robust policy compliance, and drive substantial cost savings for businesses, aligning with BCD Travel's commitment to offering flexible and modernized business travel solutions.

The AI-powered assistant offers a comprehensive conversational experience, allowing business travelers, travel arrangers, and agents to access bookings, make modifications, and receive answers to travel-related queries around the clock. This seamless, touchless experience is a direct response to the growing demand for efficiency and speed among modern business travelers. Yannis Karmis, Senior Vice President of Product Planning & Development at BCD Travel, emphasized that SkyLink’s integration with BCD’s open platform creates a market-leading engagement capability, making the corporate travel experience more dynamic, cost-effective, and user-friendly.

SkyLink’s innovative AI platform integrates seamlessly into BCD’s wider Travel Commerce Platform, establishing a connected and policy-compliant booking ecosystem that is also supported by human agents when necessary. This integration promises unmatched flexibility and scalability for corporate clients, enabling travel managers to access solutions that can seamlessly adapt to their company’s evolving needs. Atyab Bhatti, co-founder and CEO at SkyLink, highlighted that this partnership allows for seamless deployment into global travel programs, redefining the corporate traveler experience through modernization and collaboration.

SkyLink has already garnered significant recognition for its innovation in the corporate travel sector, having been “highly commended” at the Business Travel Innovation Faceoff at the Business Travel Show Europe in London and clinching the winner title at The BTN Group’s Innovation Faceoff at the 2024 Innovate conference in New York. These accolades underscore SkyLink's potential to reshape the industry with its advanced AI capabilities. Initially, BCD Travel plans to offer SkyLink’s solutions to large-scale clients in North America, with future plans for expansion into Europe and other international markets, ensuring global access to this advanced and efficient travel solution.

This strategic partnership represents a significant leap forward in the future of corporate travel. By leveraging AI technology to automate booking processes, streamline administrative tasks, and enforce policy adherence, the collaboration is set to deliver substantial benefits in terms of both operational efficiency and cost reduction. As the corporate travel landscape continues to evolve, the integration of AI-based assistants like SkyLink addresses the increasing need for flexible, efficient, and cost-effective solutions, providing businesses with enhanced control over their travel programs and ensuring a stress-free journey for travelers with real-time support readily available.