TravelPerk's secrets for being the only Spanish company in the European AI program

Thestart-upCatalan TravelPerk, dedicated to business travel management, is the only Spanish company that participates in the alliance of European companies that will invest in European AI; a plan announced on Tuesday by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, which will mobilize 200 billion euros in investments in the AI ​​sector over the next five years. On the list, the Catalan company appears alongside some of the major European industrial giants, but none of them are Spanish; the Airbus group, which is based in France but has Spanish participation, is participating.

TravelPerk, founded by Israeli Avi Meir, who has been based in Barcelona for years, ​​is a unicorn – a company valued at more than 1,000 million dollars – consolidated, especially after it announced a series E financing round of 200 million dollars last month (about 190 million. equivalent to 2.57 billion euros). With this injection of capital, the start-up has acquired Yokoy, a company dedicated to expense management, invoices and card payments powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

AI in the enterprise

As the company explained to ARA, "the acquisition of Yokoy has a lot to do with the company's AI strategy," which, beyond its participation in the European plan, has been integrating this technology into its business for years. "For TravelPerk, the use of AI aims to make teams more efficient, not replace them," they explain. "It focuses on developing technology that solves real customer problems, rather than creating products that may seem attractive, but which in practice make their experience less efficient," the company assures.

"The biggest impact of this technology so far has been in the way the company provides assistance to those who travel for work," they assure. In fact, TravelPerk explains that before the implementation of AI, a team of agents manually reviewed thousands of customer service emails every day, but now, more than 97% of these messages are managed by artificial intelligence, "which has allowed agents to handle twice as many queries compared to 2023."

According to TravelPerk, the numbers speak for themselves: the company has seen a positive increase in its customer satisfaction score (CSAT), from around 80% before AI investments to over 90% in 2024; AI automation has enabled new customers to be onboarded 80% faster, and on the bottom line, gross margin has exceeded 70% since implementing the technology.