Travel and Expense
The Future of Business Travel: SAP Concur and Amex GBT Reimagine AI-Powered Innovation in Business Travel
"I think it is actually gonna be irresponsible for CXOs to choose solutions from a variety of different players to try to cobble them together. The cleanest data makes for the cleanest AI, the cleanest productivity enhancements, the cleanest predictability." — Charlie Sultan, President of Concur Travel, SAP Concur
The Strategic Alliance That's Redefining Business Travel
In an industry known for healthy competition, SAP Concur and American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) are doing something revolutionary: they're building the future together. I recently hosted Charlie Sultan, President of Concur Travel at SAP Concur, and Evan Konwiser, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at American Express Global Business Travel, for a conversation on CXO Spice about their groundbreaking alliance. Their new "Complete " solution is fundamental reimagining of how business travel and expense management work in the AI era.
Why Now? The Case for Collaboration
For decades, SAP Concur and Amex GBT have been working together. According to both companies, the rapid evolution of AI and the increasing complexity of business travel demanded a new approach.
Traditional integrations were slowing innovation. Different certification processes, back-office technologies, and integration schedules meant waiting for everyone to catch up before moving forward. They discovered that they could enhance customer value and move faster together instead of as separate parts of the business travel ecosystem.
True co-development extends beyond API connections with joint product planning, shared development resources, and combined data ecosystems.
"This industry needs more players coming together," Charlie explains. "The vertical integration really benefits customers and allows us to move faster."
What Makes This Different: Co-creating a Next Gen Solution
Both SAP Concur and Amex GBT are investing development resources and funding into building something new:
- Joint product planning processes that align six-month and rolling quarterly roadmaps
- Shared engineering teams working on the same codebase
- Unified data layer combining SAP Concur's travel and expense data with American Express Global Business Travel's marketplace and servicing insights
- AI at the core from day one rather than bolted on later
"We've spent months doing the boring work of building a joint product planning process," Evan Konwiser at Amex GBT notes. "You have to align not just the cool features you're building, but honestly, the plumbing; because the plumbing is what enables the AI features our customers really want."
The Traveler Experience: From Reactive to Proactive
Imagine a business travel experience where:
- Your expense report practically files itself, pulling data from bookings, enriching it with contextual information, and checking it against policy in real-time
- AI catches policy violations before they happen, not weeks later during reconciliation
- One unified chat agent handles everything from booking changes to expense questions to flight disruptions
- Proactive agents work on your behalf, constantly seeking better seats, monitoring weather impacts, and re-accommodating you automatically when things go wrong
"Travelers want a single solution that delivers everything from trip initiation through expense payment as seamlessly as possible, with as little action required, ," says Evan at Amex GBT.
The Data Advantage: Millions of Trips, One Intelligence
The value of this alliance lies in the depth and quality of the data cross travel and expense::
- Over 600 airlines and 2 million properties in the Amex GBT marketplace
- Millions of transactions flowing through SAP Concur's platform
- Complete trip lifecycle data from search and booking through payment and reconciliation
- Both online and offline transactions creating a 360-degree view of corporate travel
This comprehensive dataset enables AI applications that weren't possible before:
- Intelligent offer creation that considers not just the cheapest flight, but total trip cost including hotels, ground transport, and productivity impacts
- Predictive compliance monitoring that identifies patterns before issues arise
- AI detecting AI-generated receipts to prevent fraud
- Dynamic policy optimization that balances cost management with employee productivity in real-time
For CXOs: Control AND Experience
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of this alliance is how it resolves the traditional trade-off between control and experience.
What CFOs and CPOs gain:
- Real-time visibility into spends across the entire travel lifecycle
- The ability to dynamically adjust policies based on business needs (quarterly targets, new projects, etc.)
- Integration into broader SAP business suite (CRM, ERP) for holistic decision-making
- Predictive insights rather than just historical reports
What travelers gain:
- Consumer-grade booking experience with personalized, contextual recommendations
- Automated expense creation and policy checking
- Unified support across all channels (web, mobile, chat)
- Seamless escalation to human agents when needed
"CXOs are no longer gonna have to choose between control and experience," Charlie at SAP Concur emphasizes. "We're designing for both."
The NDC and Modern Retailing Challenge
As airlines unbundle their products and offer increasingly complicated fare options, the marketplace is exploding with choices. Where there were thousands of options a few years ago, there are now millions; considering different fare classes, refundability, seat selection, baggage, and more.
This complexity makes AI essential. The technology can process millions of permutations against corporate policy, personal preferences, and total trip economics to surface the optimal choice vs. just the lowest fare.
Looking Ahead: The Moonshot Vision
For travelers: Fully agentic AI working proactively on your behalf with monitoring for better options, handling disruptions, and even integrating work and personal calendars with appropriate security so you can make it home for important events.
For finance teams: AI that translates business objectives directly into dynamic travel policies, automatically optimizing the cost-productivity balance and providing instant visibility across all spend categories.
For the industry: A shift from "who's your TMC?" to "who's your integrated T&E provider?" with companies competing on the quality of the total experience vs. individual components.
"My primary goal is for people to ask before you take a job, 'Who do you use to manage travel?' And if the answer is Complete or Egencia plus Concur Expense, then you say: Okay, this is a place that I want to work because I'm going to get the travel experience I want." — Evan Konwiser, Chief Product and Strategy Officer, American Express Global Business Travel
My Three Key Takeaways
- AI is the new operating system for business travel. It's no longer an add-on feature but the fundamental architecture connecting booking, servicing, payments, and expense into one intelligent flow.
- True innovation requires deeper collaboration. Integration isn't enough. Shared investment, shared data, and shared accountability across partners is the new competitive advantage.
- The opportunity is both strategic and human. Organizations can now achieve both cost management and exceptional employee experience, with compliance and security embedded throughout.
What Should CXOs Do Next?
According to Charlie, leaders should evaluate whether their current T&E model is optimized for the next five to ten years. Key questions to consider:
- Where is your data going, and who controls it?
- According to Charlie, leaders should evaluate whether their current T&E model is optimized for the next five to ten years. Key questions to consider:
- Where is your data going, and who controls it?
- Are your systems truly integrated, or just connected via APIs?
- Can you pivot policies quickly when business needs change?
- Do you have the data quality required for reliable AI?
As the business travel industry enters the AI era, the winners won't be those with the most features; they'll be those with the most integrated, intelligent, and continuously improving platforms.
The alliance between SAP Concur and American Express Global Business Travel signals a future where smarter platforms finally translate into simpler, more human travel experiences.
Watch the full conversation on CXO Spice: https://youtu.be/eZIQMQUOWcw
This content was originally published on LinkedIn. Read the original article here.
