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US travel platform Navan launches AI assistant
Navan, a corporate travel-booking platform founded in 2015, debuted Navan Edge this week as an AI assistant to help users book flights, hotels, and restaurants, and to extend the company’s reach beyond corporate accounts.
The feature will be available to anyone who signs up on Navan’s website rather than only to users whose employers provide access, the company said.
Navan said Navan Edge was developed in-house and uses data from the company’s millions of bookings made by more than 10,000 companies, according to a statement Monday.
Ariel Cohen, co-founder and chief executive officer, described the product as akin to a hyper-personalized executive assistant in an interview.
Navan also offers expense management and other corporate travel tools, and the company said it aims to tap a roughly US$56 billion business travel market.
The rollout reflects a broader push by companies to add AI features to customer-facing products.
🔗 Source: Bloomberg
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
Navan’s new AI moves into unmanaged travel
- Navan Edge targets the roughly US$56 billion business travel market by expanding past employer-run corporate accounts to anyone who signs up on Navan’s website 1.
- The AI assistant tries to match the feel of an executive assistant, using natural language to book flights, hotels, and restaurants, plus narrow hotel options based on details like gym opening hours or rooms with blackout curtains 1.
- Navan said it built Navan Edge in-house, training it on data from millions of bookings across more than 10,000 companies 1.
AI is turning into the new front door for complex software
- Navan Edge’s launch follows a wider pattern as software firms add AI features to customer products.
- Navan also sells expense management and corporate travel tools, which lets it connect AI booking with finance workflows used by corporate travel teams and finance teams.
- Conversational AI points to booking that happens through chat, which can replace long menus in travel and expense software.
