Amadeus Execs on the AI Evolution with Microsoft 

Amadeus has learned a lot about AI in the past year. The company has been experimenting with how the latest advancements of AI will define the next generation of its services for travel companies. 

A year ago, Amadeus was focused on laying the groundwork to make that happen. While much of that work is still being done, Amadeus has a clearer picture of how the future may look.

Two Amadeus executives spoke with Skift recently about how the company’s focus has evolved over the past year in partnership with Microsoft, which draws its AI from OpenAI:

• Joe Youssef, executive vice president of the commercial team for Amadeus’s hospitality division in North America
• Michael Yeomans, senior vice president of business intelligence and data solutions for Amadeus’s hospitality division

Less Hype, More Action

There was a lot of hype last year around the topic of AI in travel, while industry leaders dove into what needed to actually happen to make those ideas a reality. 

Amadeus has shared several AI projects since then. They include a product to make airline retailing more like shopping on Amazon, as well as a connection that allows Microsoft Copilot users to book business trips using natural language within Teams. There are other pilots in development, including a tool for automatic airline crew rescheduling.

The company last month released an AI-powered chatbot for its business intelligence product, meant to help users navigate data by asking questions in everyday language. 

• “With AI, we’re still answering the same market problems, but we’re enabling the customer [with a] quicker ability to make decisions. Allowing new people who are entering into the industry — that maybe don’t have 10, 15, 20 years of experience running these tools — to be able to ask more natural language questions.” – Yeomans
• “For example, we [could] leverage Microsoft Teams to solve for internal communication problems for some of our hoteliers. How does that fit in with some of our execution tools for hoteliers — it’s a possibility. Is it an in-market product right now? It’s not. But can it be an idea for the future? Probably.” – Youssef

Focusing on Key Market Problems

Amadeus is focused on four key market problems, Youssef said, notably a shrunken labor force paired with a growing number of hotels.

• “There’s data fragmentation. There’s technology fragmentation. Demand channels fragmentation. And how do you bring all that with lack of labor? After Covid, the industry in the United States has lost about 1.5 million professionals — a lot of those are never going to come back, and we’re still expanding hotel build out. So hotels are increasing; labor is short.” – Youssef
• “I think that’s what we can help with. How can we help you avoid the shortage of labor, or shortage of experienced labor.” – Youssef