Why FCM chose to build its own AI tool
Click on any travel industry news site and you'll see artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere.
Airlines are rolling it out to improve customer experience, optimise routing, and tidy up airport operations. Hotels are using it to stay on top of maintenance, personalise stays, and dabble in dynamic pricing. And travel management companies (TMCs) are exploring ways AI can automate repetitive tasks, freeing up their people to focus on solving tricky situations and building rapport.
But while many in the industry are white-labelling third-party chatbots and assistants to add “AI” to their portfolios, we’ve taken a different path. One that we hope puts long-term value and customer benefit at the centre. The launch of Sam, our proprietary virtual business travel assistant, is the latest step in that journey.
“Some of our competitors are announcing partnerships with a long list of startups and third-party providers to boost their AI accolades,” said John Morhous, Global Chief Experience Officer, Flight Centre Travel Group (FCM Travel’s parent company). “But these integrations — which essentially boil down to white-labelling at the app level — often lead to fragmented, difficult-to-scale ecosystems, where each tool has its own logic, contracts, support model and data requirements.”
Owning our future
In software development, the debate often comes down to “buy vs build.” Buying can be quick, but it puts your destiny in someone else’s hands. “I believe that’s what some of our competitors are doing, trying to fill gaps quickly,” explained Adrian Lopez, former Head of AI, Flight Centre Travel Group. “But there’s a ton of other risks. You’re at the hands of these providers, and we see this every day in software development, especially now with AI. They run out of funding. Get acquired. Stop working. Or the offering changes. That means any edge you have completely disappears overnight.”
By building our own, we control the narrative. We can adapt as our customers’ needs evolve, and we never have to fight for a share of someone else’s development queue. A true differentiator some might say.
“We own our AI future, from beginning to end,” said Rey Garcia, VP of AI Strategy, Flight Centre Travel Group. “If we want to take a U-turn at any point, no problem, we decide which way we go.”
John added, “This approach also means that we can commit to more sound security and privacy principles than our competitors, which our customers and prospects no doubt appreciate.”
Built for travel management
With all this being said. We do integrate market tools when they make sense. For example, FCM Extension works with ChatGPT to help travel managers craft quick messages. However, this use case is a simple copywriter, not something wholeheartedly designed for corporate travel management.
Looking inwards, Flight Centre Travel Group has teamed up with Anthropic to power FCGPT (our very own ChatGPT). Having our own gated AI tool for employees means we control the data, lock down the security, and free up our people to focus on customers.
But when it comes to travel-specific needs, generic AI chat interfaces don’t tend to go deep enough.
“Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), FCM’s parent company, has been around for a long time,” Rey explained. “We know how our systems and people work, how our travellers travel, and what our customers expect. So, transferring all this knowledge to a third party is risky, because a lot of that built-up knowledge is what makes FCM different.”
The evolution of Sam
Sam is the AI intelligence linking company data, policies, travel patterns, approval flows, booking systems, external factors, all of it, to deliver one personalised experience. Customers experience Sam as a conversational virtual travel assistant, providing instant answers to travel and programme related questions.
Here are some of the things customers throw at Sam:
- “What’s the wait time at JFK security right now?”
- “What was our top hotel booked last quarter?”
- “Does this traveller have a passport on file?”
- “Are any of my people travelling at the moment?”
- “Summarise our travel & expense policy for Singapore”
- “I saw a limo service at the airport. Can I book it?”
The conversational interface is just one component. Sam connects the dots across a customer’s entire travel setup including interactions with our agent teams, driving efficiencies at every touchpoint. And since we own it, we can teach Sam new tricks whenever we need.
Customer-driven innovation
Along with the ability to stay ahead, owning our tech story means we can move fast when our customers need something. “Our team have some good ideas,” said Rey. “But we don’t have them all.”
Our customers know their travel programmes better than anyone, and our people that work alongside them, see what works and what doesn't across many different programmes. So, when customers tell us “It would be great if your tech could…", 9 times out of 10, we turn those ideas into solutions.
Daniel Senyard, former SVP of Commercial Platforms and Innovation, Flight Centre Travel Group, sums it up: “We’ve got industry domain expertise, company-specific expertise, and the knowledge of our customers. Rather than relying on an off-the-shelf tool, this layered approach gives us a lot of benefits.”
Smarter investment
There’s also a financial reality. Licensing external AI often comes with eye-watering per-seat costs, sometimes north of $125 USD per user. Given the current economic climate, this adds up pretty quickly.
“There’s a cost efficiency in building this internally. We don’t have an overcharging third party that sends us an invoice each month. Building our own solutions makes sense for our business,” said Rey. By developing in-house, we avoid potentially inflated vendor pricing and can invest in solutions and resources that deliver a focused long-term value for customers.
More like this...
Our choice to keep AI in-house is as much as tech decision as it is a commitment to our people, and the travellers and businesses who deserve reliable, flexible, and future-ready tools.
