Artificial intelligence-powered travel concierge Mezi has pulled out of its travel management company relationships, cutting ties to the corporate travel space after being acquired by American Express in January 2018.
Mezi, which began as a generalized shopping assistant in 2015, pivoted to travel about 18 months in and courted corporate travel agencies aggressively in 2017 as an AI-enhanced, chat-based travel booking and communication platform that offered aggregated GDS and non-GDS content as well as dining recommendations tailored to individual preferences and corporate policy.
Last July, the company announced three TMC contracts: Adelman Travel, Casto Travel and WTMC (formerly W Travel).
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Mezi co-founder and CEO Swapnil Shinde told BTN in January that the company would continue to support TMC partners and operate as an independent company with its own leadership even as it moved under the American Express umbrella.
"When it comes to existing TMC clients, we will continue," he said, noting, however, that the company would not take on any additional agency partners as Mezi concentrated on scaling AskAmex for the card company.
Six months later, those TMC partnerships are out.
An American Express public relations representative on Friday attributed the following statement to Shinde: "We are no longer working with these travel management companies. We've decided to prioritize our work on integrating our technology into American Express products and services."
Agency reaction
WTMC CEO Sarosh Waghmar tells BTN that American Express had asked Mezi to wind down its agency relationships over the next two weeks. Asked how the loss would affect WTMC, Waghmar shrugged it off.
"They were building a lot of things with us sharing with them how to do it," he says, downplaying the AI enhancements and focusing on backend content aggregation.
"For us, the UI/UX at the front end is the easiest piece. The focus we have right now is on the pipes [and] plumbing. Using the GDS [and] NDC as pipes and aggregating all of that and displaying that to the right source. Fortunately, it won't impact us at all."
Casto Travel, which launched the Marco travel assistant on the Mezi platform in September, saw the writing on the wall soon after Mezi was acquired. CEO Marc Casto says the two companies parted ways a couple of months ago and Casto re-tooled Marco accordingly with Sabre. The new version launched last week.
Casto Travel's website no longer identifies Mezi as a technology provider and the description of the tool no longer specifies travel booking capabilities.
"The changes in service scope were done in conjunction with client feedback," says Casto. "In large measure the interest was for simple rebooking and information requests, less on itinerary creation." Casto told BTN in September that among launch clients then on the Mezi platform only about 10% of bookings were initiated through the tool.
He adds, however, that some clients had also expressed concern about requiring travelers to download "yet another app," which, he says, motivated Marco's pivot to webchat and Facebook Messenger.
Asked about Mezi's defection from the corporate market to a consumer-side-only strategy, Casto says: "I continue to have very high regard for everyone at the company. AskAmex is an excellent service for Amex card holders and a very smart addition to their product offering."
BTN was unable to reach Adelman Travel for comment.
* This story originally appeared on BTN.