Business travel AI look-back and future

Experts review the past trends and onward predictions shaping AI in business travel. 

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) was one of the major buzzwords of 2025, not just in the travel sector, but everywhere.

But did it live up to the hype? What’s in store for 2026?

In this video, Daniel Senyard, SVP of Commercial Platforms and Innovation and Rey Garcia, VP of AI Strategy cut through the noise.

AI in 2025

What became reality in 2025?

Approx. 1 minute

Daniel shares how the rise of agentic AI grew in 2025.

  • How this technology became more than a prompt responder
  • 00:26 - How giving AI access to tools enabled it to assist in building plans 

What didn't happen? 

Approx. 2 minutes

New technology is always over-hyped in some ways, and not in others. Daniel and Rey discuss:

  • Why jobs aren't being replaced
  • 01:00 - How AGI (artificial general intelligence) didn’t take off how originally thought
  • 01:12 - How definitions are changing as AI evolves 

Lessons learnt about AI in 2025

Approx. 5 minutes

As well as learning that not one model has dominated, Daniel and Rey get into:

  • Why AI must be integrated into the workplace
  • 01:30 - What the MIT study on workflows really uncovered  
  • 04:52 - Why using AI is like training how to use a baseball bat

What was the most common misconception?

Approx. 3 minutes

There was one big concern about the new world of prompting and automation: data. How it’s accessed, how it’s stored (if at all), and how it’s used.  

  • How information is saved in a model vs leveraged in a model  
  • 01:40 – How FCM is leveraging AI with Sam, our AI ecosystem, but not storing information like an open platform

AI in 2026

What to expect in 2026

Approx. 9 minutes

Travel is ripe for AI innovation; Daniel and Rey share where they think there is the most potential:

  • Ability to move from reactive to proactive
  • 01:54 - Value of a travel management company  
  • 03:53 – How ecosystems and tools can be leveraged can focus on different personas
  • 04:13 - Building trust, especially in the booking process 

AI at FCM Travel

What Daniel and Rey are most proud of  

Approx. 4.5 minutes  

Time to delve into what we at FCM have been up to. Daniel and Rey talk about:

  • Jumping on agentic AI and incorporating security  
  • 02:33 – Benefits of building as a horizontal universal layer  
  • 03:08 - Hyper personalization  
  • 03:30 - Use of tools and workflows internally

Why we built Sam how we did

Approx. 1 minute

Sam is more than a chatbot; it’s the ecosystem that all FCM’s technology and people connect in to. Daniel shares why this was important in a world where travel managers are frustrated by siloed systems.

More AI-related resources from FCM