With AI at the centre of a massive private takeover of Amex GBT, the company rolls out an agentic solution to accelerate hotel sourcing. Photo Credit: AdobeStock/KanawatTH
Following a US$6.3bn acquisition by an artificial intelligence (AI) holding company, all eyes are on what the next big AI move by American Express Global Business Travel (AMEX GBT) might be.
Now, the managed travel giant has dropped Hotel Lobby, an agentic AI capability within its hotel sourcing consulting service.
Related: Amex GBT to go private with $6.3bn acquisition by AI-driven firm | Meetings & Conventions Asia
The company said the system is designed to shorten hotel sourcing cycles and support year-round programme optimisation.
Hotel Lobby assigns specialised AI agents to coverage, negotiation and sourcing tasks. The system automates data cleansing, target-rate calculations and requests-for-proposal validation, drawing on negotiated-rate benchmarks, supplier performance data from more than $5 billion in managed hotel spend, and compliance trends across Amex GBT’s client portfolio.
Amex GBT said its existing hotel sourcing process produces average savings of 28.8% against best available rates and a 96% property response rate across more than 80,000 hotels sourced each year.
Hotel Lobby applies automation to that process, while hotel-sourcing consultants remain responsible for strategy, negotiations and exceptions.
Sara Andell, Amex GBT’s director of consulting strategy, said the agents handle data-heavy work so consultants can devote more time to negotiations and other decisions that affect savings.
The product addresses a hotel sourcing model that often relies on one annual RFP cycle even as pricing, demand and traveler behavior change throughout the year. By reducing preparation time, Amex GBT aims to enable faster sourcing rounds and, eventually, continuous monitoring of negotiated rates, coverage and compliance.
Hotel Lobby uses Amex GBT’s agent-to-agent architecture, which the company said is already operating in its travel servicing and booking products. It is the first of several planned AI upgrades for Amex GBT Consulting, with further integration into reporting and intelligence tools under consideration.
In research commissioned by Amex GBT and conducted by Forrester, 3% of surveyed organizations described travel as part of a fully orchestrated enterprise workflow, while 92% of IT decision-makers said AI would transform travel into continuously optimised systems.
Hotel Lobby is available worldwide to Amex GBT Consulting clients and enterprise travel programmes.