Overview of the Travel AI Agent

The Travel AI Agent is a smart tool that streamlines every step of business travel: from policy-compliant flight and hotel booking to automatic payment, invoice generation, and real-time change handling.

It eliminates the back-and-forth that often frustrates travellers, office managers, and finance teams. The Travel AI Agent is embedded in the Payhawk web portal and mobile app as a core booking experience, and also works seamlessly within communication channels like Slack (MS Teams coming soon).

If you are unsure exactly what the Travel AI Agent can do for you, you can ask it directly.

Travel agent chat interface showing flight options and user inquiries for booking.

Common challenges in business travel

Finance teams often face fragmented travel and expense processes, out-of-policy spending, and complex booking tools, which leads to inefficiencies and increased administrative work. The Payhawk Travel AI Agent solves addresses these challenges by enforcing company policies in real time and providing an intuitive booking experience. This ensures compliance and ease of use for both employees and finance teams.

Key functionalities

The Travel AI Agent helps streamline processes and improve efficiency in various cases.

Functionality

Capability

Enforcing company travel policies

Enforces company travel policies during the booking process.
Automatically applies approval workflows, card limits, and funds availability.
Prevents out-of-policy spending and minimizes the need for manual post-trip corrections.
Ensures every trip is fully compliant before it takes place.

Offering an intuitive booking experience

Users select and confirm available flight and hotel options using natural language prompts.
The Agent tailors results based on individual user preferences and asks for any missing details through a seamless conversational experience.
The Travel AI Agent books the chosen flights and hotels directly within Payhawk.
Users receive real-time notifications about changes such as flight delays or cancellations.

Automatic payment and invoice generation

When the hotel or flight transaction is paid through Payhawk, the system automatically generates a receipt immediately after the payment is completed and attaches it to the corresponding expense in the system.
When the hotel or flight transaction is completed through Payhawk, the system automatically generates an invoice after the transaction is settled and attaches it to the corresponding expense in the system.
When the transaction is completed directly with the hotel, they are the ones that provide the invoice. In those cases, the employee will be reminded to obtain the invoice directly from the hotel.

Smart assistance

While the Travel AI Agent cannot directly answer everyday how‑to and general questions, it will redirect you to the Payments AI Agent. The Payments Agent will then reply to you directly by using information from the Payhawk help desk.

If you request an action handled by another Payhawk AI Agent, the Travel AI Agent will let you know which AI Agent can assist. That AI Agent will then message you directly so you can complete the task.

For example, if you ask the Travel AI Agent to upload an invoice for a card expense you’ve made, it will explain that the Financial Controller AI Agent handles such requests. The Financial Controller AI Agent will then message you to continue the conversation and help complete the task.

How the Travel AI Agent works for Finance teams

By activating the Travel AI Agent, Finance teams can streamline travel management and improve compliance through:

Real-time policy enforcement during booking, ensuring all trips are within company guidelines.
Automated payments and invoice generation, with expenses instantly created and receipts attached, eliminating manual reconciliation.
Centralized visibility into travel spend, reducing out-of-policy expenses and simplifying month-end reporting.

How the Travel AI Agent works for employees

With the Payhawk Travel AI Agent, employees can easily book compliant business trips. The Travel AI Agent guides users through the booking process using a simple conversational interface and allows them to search, select, and confirm flights and hotels with a few natural prompts.

The Travel AI Agent allows employees to:

Book policy-compliant business travels directly in the Payhawk web portal, mobile app, and Slack without separate logins or training. Note that the Travel AI Agent books business travels without requiring a passport or ID card, as such documents will be necessary at a later stage such as during flights or hotel check-ins.
Use Payhawk cards for payment, with receipts and invoices automatically attached to expenses.
Receive real-time updates on booking confirmations, delays, or cancellations.

Activating the Travel AI Agent

The Travel AI Agent comes out of the box and is included in both the Payhawk mobile app and web portal.

Payhawk dashboard displaying recent expenses and tasks for users Dianne and Robert.

Employee access to the AI Agent in Slack depends on whether a Payhawk administrator at your company has enabled the communication channel in the Payhawk web portal from Settings > AI Office.

Processing your data

For more information about how Payhawk processes personal data for the Travel AI Agent feature, see the following resources:

Payhawk Terms & Conditions
Global Privacy Policy - Covers personal data for which Payhawk acts as a Controller.
Data Processing Addendum - Covers personal data for which Payhawk acts as a Processor.

Next steps

Enabling and configuring the Travel AI Agent