Navan Introduces Hotel Concierge by Ava
Generative AI-Powered Virtual Assistant Now Delivers Hyper-Personalized Booking Recommendations in Seconds
PALO ALTO, CA, September 27, 2023 — Navan, the all-in-one solution that makes travel and expense easy, today announced Hotel Concierge by Ava, the latest in a series of generative AI advancements from Navan’s award-winning automated virtual assistant, Ava. Acting as a hyper-personalized concierge, Ava can now provide tailored recommendations informed by travelers’ individual preferences and booking patterns to increase efficiency and help frequent travelers stay one step ahead.
The process of trip planning — which can take hours of research — is now done in a matter of seconds, saving time for EAs, road warriors, leisure travelers, and blended/bleisure travelers. Weaving in publicly available information, such as destination location and hotel reviews, customers are shown a curated selection of hotels within company policy and ranked by the best option for the traveler, based on preferences.
“As a CEO I am always traveling and, over time, I’ve come to favor a certain type of hotel, no matter where I go. For example, I like a nice gym, I like rooms to be spacious enough to do video calls, and I like a nice restaurant,” says Navan CEO and co-founder Ariel Cohen. “That said, when I visit new cities, finding a hotel that meets my preferences can be a bit of a gamble. With Concierge, we are removing that guesswork — personalizing business travel, saving time, increasing efficiency, and enabling road warriors like me to fully focus on the job at hand.”
Ava will now fill out forms, optimize a travel search around traveler preferences, provide context on suggested bookings, and instantly scour the Navan database of reviews to help travelers plan the perfect stay.
To replicate the heightened level of service by travel agents with deep knowledge of an individual traveler, Ava analyzes each user’s individual booking patterns to provide recommendations based on preferences such as:
Loyalty program memberships
Favored hotel type
Historically preferred amenities (breakfast, gym, pool, pet friendly, etc.)
Room size (square footage, bed size)
Distance from the company office or other landmarks
The latest offering follows a slew of generative AI products and features from Navan, which became the first travel company to integrate the technology in February 2023 when Navan added GPT to its AI/ML chatbot. In May, Navan announced a CFO-focused dashboard that analyzes real-time spend data, provides insights into T&E questions, and proactively finds opportunities for savings. As the latest iteration of Ava, Concierge will operate as an opt-in web application and will be rolling out to select cities soon.
Led by Chief Technology Officer Ilan Twig, the Navan team will continue leveraging generative AI to further enhance Ava’s capabilities to reimagine tedious travel tasks.
“With Concierge by Ava, the cumbersome process of searching, clicking, sorting, and comparing to find your perfect hotel is now a thing of the past,” says Ilan Twig, CTO and co-founder of Navan. “Ava has broken out of the chat box and interacts directly with the Navan platform, taking the work out of travel planning — the latest in our mission to make travel and expense easy through relentless innovation and magical user experiences.”
About Navan
Navan is the all-in-one solution that makes travel and expense easy so you can focus on being there, not getting there. Say goodbye to spending hours on the phone trying to change your flight or saving stacks of receipts to manually input expenses. From EAs and finance teams to travel managers and employees, Navan empowers people to focus on the things that matter most to them—all while providing companies with real-time visibility, savings, and control. Learn more at navan.com
