By: Paljor Lama, Managing Consultant, Engage
Imagine logging onto your computer and, instead of manually navigating through corporate online booking tools (OBTs) like Concur, GetThere, or Cytric, an AI-powered browser assistant automatically navigates these online booking tools, compares options, interprets preferences, and assembles your entire trip.
No clicking through menus, no manual filtering. Just a single natural-language request.
This isn’t theoretical. AI browsers and autonomous AI agents like Comet and ChatGPT Atlas are already reshaping how people interact with travel platforms. And while they promise convenience, they also introduce a new layer of complexity for cost control, travel policy compliance, and supplier engagement.
AI browsers: a new interface, not a new booking tool
These tools don’t just search—they act. They complete multi-step tasks, interpret travel policy rules, learn traveler habits, and adjust plans autonomously when disruptions occur. That means the “interface” of corporate travel booking may no longer be the OBT screen, but the AI agent sitting on top of it.
However, this shift raises new travel program governance questions:
- What information are travelers being shown?
- On what basis is the AI recommending one itinerary over another?
- Does the recommendation actually respect company travel policy?
- And crucially: does it protect contracted hotel rates, preferred suppliers, and negotiated savings?
AI autonomy introduces benefits, but also new travel program leakage pathways.
What this means for your corporate booking tool and travel policies
AI browsers may reduce traveler dependence on traditional OBT interfaces, but they also make OBTs more important behind the scenes.
Going forward, OBTs will need to support natural-language and AI-compatible search, offer transparent policy rules that AI agents can read and enforce, and expose APIs and structured content that keep the AI’s guidance aligned with corporate travel objective. For corporate travel buyers, this represents a new conversation: How do we ensure AI browsers become an extension of travel policy rather than an escape route around it?
Without firm governance, AI recommendations could unintentionally bypass preferred suppliers, ignore lowest logical fare or rate rules, shift bookings offline, and even weaken contract performance and rebate agreements. In short, AI browsers may amplify existing out-of-program booking risk if corporate travel programs don’t adapt.
For travel managers, the priority now is to make the travel policy legible to machines as well as humans, and to explicitly define how AI tools should be used in planning and booking. This means tightening policy language around approved channels, preferred suppliers, and ‘lowest logical fare’ so it can be encoded into OBT rules and exposed via APIs that AI browsers can read and enforce.
In parallel, organizations should introduce clear AI usage guidelines (what’s allowed for inspiration vs. what’s required for final booking), and update audit routines to flag AI-driven leakage patterns.
Implications for airlines, hotels, and car rental providers
AI browsers will not “choose” suppliers the way humans do. They optimize based on perceived total trip value, policy constraints, real-time availability, traveler preferences, and an algorithmic interpretation of the “best option”. This may cause unexpected shifts in booking volumes.
Suppliers should prepare for heightened competition, as AI agents will dynamically compare content across multiple channels, potentially diminishing the role of online travel agencies (OTAs) by automatically aggregating and evaluating all options. They must prioritize clean, structured, real-time data, transition from loyalty-driven to value-driven booking decisions, ensure negotiated rates are fully loaded and easily discoverable, and transition from loyalty-driven to value-driven booking outcomes.
Without stronger governance models, contract performance may become less predictable and negotiated savings may be harder to realize.
Key considerations for each stakeholder group
Corporate buyers
- Strengthen policy clarity so AI tools can reliably interpret and enforce it
- Evaluate OBT and TMC partners on their AI integration readiness
- Monitor leakage risk as traveler booking behaviors shift
- Ensure governance protects negotiated value and spend visibility
Travelers
- Use AI tools for convenience, but understand policy boundaries
- Recognize the difference between “best for me” and “best for the company”
Suppliers
- Improve API quality and dynamic pricing integrations
- Prepare for AI-driven comparisons that prioritize total value over loyalty
Travel Management Companies (TMCs)
- Build capabilities around AI oversight, data governance, and risk management
- Help clients adapt compliance and cost-control strategies for hybrid, AI-assisted booking behavior
The cost-control question: the real issue behind the AI browser shift
The core challenge of AI browsers lies not in the technology itself, but in their implications for spend visibility and traveler behavior. If unmanaged, they risk increasing leakage, diluting negotiated savings, reducing adoption of preferred suppliers, and inadvertently promoting out-of-policy options. However, with robust governance, AI browsers have the potential to prevent last-minute high-cost bookings, promote lower-carbon choices, instantly highlight compliant preferred options, minimize traveler errors and policy violations, and streamline disruption rebookings. The savings or overspend potential lies entirely in how organizations prepare.
Looking ahead: a balanced approach to AI in corporate travel
AI browsers won’t replace business travel programs, OBTs, or TMCs. They will simply add another interface layer—one that is powerful, convenient, and increasingly used by travelers whether companies plan for it or not.
The organizations that will benefit are those that treat AI browsers as part of their travel ecosystem, strengthen governance rather than loosening it, rethink policy design for AI-human decision-making, and manage both risk and opportunity with equal weight.
Just as Netflix reshaped entertainment by making choice effortless, AI browsers will reshape travel by making booking intuitive and autonomous. But unlike entertainment, corporate travel has cost, compliance, safety, and contractual obligations at stake.The future will reward travel programs that recognize both sides of this shift: the promise of convenience and the pressure on cost control. The AI browser era has begun — and now is the time for corporate travel programs to adapt, not react.
At Advito, we help organizations navigate these complex behavioral and technological shifts. Rather than relying on restrictive policies, we focus on change management, traveler communications, and governance frameworks that clearly guide when AI can support discovery and when approved booking channels must be used. By translating policy into clear, human-centered guidance and embedding it into the moments that matter, we help clients protect compliance, duty of care, and travel spend optimization while still enabling innovation. The result is not less AI use, but smarter, more confident use—powered by data and driven by people. Reach out to our team today to learn more.