SAP Concur Continues to Deliver Business Travel Innovation with Booking Agent, Consumer-Grade Travel Features at GBTA 2025

At SAP Concur, we innovate continually to improve our customers’ experience—anticipating their needs and meeting them where they are—to help create a world where travel and expense tasks practically manage themselves.  

Today, at the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Convention in Denver, we’re announcing new milestones in this journey with new consumer-grade travel features that harness AI, help travellers easily book policy-compliant business trips, and receive important information instantly.

New Booking Agent

SAP Concur is transforming the planning and booking experience with the new Booking Agent solution. With this agent, travellers can book policy-compliant trips without needing to know the policy details. Plus, it is one of the many agents in the expanding network of Joule Agents from SAP, which will be able to reason and coordinate with other agents across business functions to execute tasks through multi-step, self-conceived workflows while involving a human.

Booking Agent provides:

• Conversational booking guidance, making it easy for travellers to use natural language to ask for help booking a trip. With a simple query such as “book me a flight to Paris on Tuesday morning,” the agent will generate suggested, policy-compliant itineraries instantly.  
• Personalization with options that match traveler preferences while also adhering to company travel policies.
• Integrated expense context, surfacing real-time pricing breakdowns, travel class justifications, and spend estimates to eliminate surprises when it’s time for expense submission.

Eighty-eight percent of global business travellers say they’d be comfortable using AI-powered automation for some elements of business travel, like booking, re-booking, or completing expense reports, according to the recently released seventh annual SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey. The most popular uses were to support re-booking or making changes before the trip (44%) and curating travel options during the initial booking (39%).

Booking Agent helps customers take advantage of the benefits of AI with these popular use cases in alignment with SAP Concur’s focus on meeting customers where they are on their AI adoption journeys. We offer choice, anticipate needs, and guide customers on where AI can be most beneficial.

“We continue to enhance the new Concur Travel experience to better serve customers,” said Charlie Sultan, President of Concur Travel at SAP Concur. “With SAP Business AI, we’re innovating rapidly to transform the way companies manage business travel and improve the business traveler experience.”

Customers participating in the SAP Early Adopter program will be able to book flights via Booking Agent starting in August with general availability planned for Q4 of this year.

New Concur Request Features Help with Trip Planning

SAP Concur also is rolling out Concur Request enhancements that are now available to help with trip planning. First, a new budget authorization capability revolutionizes the way employees and managers use travel and expense budgets. This feature makes it possible to ask for budget that may apply to one or more participants during a defined period of time.

Imagine an employee who visits a client site monthly. Instead of creating separate requests for each trip, the employee can now submit a single request that covers the budget for all trips over a select period. The capability can apply to one person with multiple trips, or teams and departments traveling together. For instance, a manager can request a total budget for a team attending a conference. The approved amount would then be assigned to multiple employees.

Until now, users could only submit requests on their own behalf in Concur Request. With this new capability, the process is greatly simplified and grants flexibility for travellers and managers creating requests for multiple employees or trips.

SAP Concur also continues to invest in consumer travel experiences for business trip planning. Similar to TripIt Pro’s Risk Alerts feature, Concur Request now offers travel advisories to business travellers, providing important information about potential  disruptions to their trip, such as airport strikes, natural disasters, or visa requirements. The travel advisory data powered by Riskline helps travellers assess risk about their destination when they make travel-related requests.

Trip Extras to Easily Add Third-Party Travel Services and Guide Policy-aligned Decisions

Concur Travel offers customers a streamlined, secure, and user-friendly travel experience that is enhanced by integration with essential third-party services. SAP Concur is launching Trip Extras, a new Concur Travel feature that presents travellers with options to purchase relevant, vetted third-party travel services throughout the booking process. In addition, Trip Extras will provide travellers with timely information from trusted partners to help support decision making aligned with company policies, travel guidance, sustainability goals, and traveler wellbeing.

With Trip Extras:

• Employees benefit from simplified bookings, reduced administrative tasks, and access to additional options from trusted providers, enhancing the overall experience.
• Customizable controls and real-time monitoring reduce fraud risk. Trip Extras also will display relevant information—such as tax compliance and carbon offsets—to help guide bookings and support policy-aligned decisions.
• With built-in duty of care features and verified partners, organizations can better protect travellers and respond swiftly in emergencies.

Initially, Trip Extras will offer ground transportation options, in partnership with Groundspan, with plans to expand to other categories such as airport parking and visa processing, making business travel purchases easier. Trip Extras will be available as part of the SAP Early Adopter program in August 2025 with general availability planned for Q4 of this year.

Managing business travel and expenses should feel effortless for employees, and with the right technology, it can be. At SAP Concur, we’re committed to making that experience a reality, continuously delivering features that simplify complex, policy-driven processes and bring our customers closer to a world where travel and expenses practically manage themselves.

For more information, visit SAP Concur at GBTA Booth #920.