Travel disruption is inevitable. It is also more common and far more costly than many realize. According to recent research from Perk (formerly TravelPerk), costs related to disruptions account for about 4% of annual business travel spend, costing U.S. companies roughly $17 billion annually.
But it's the cascade of failures that follow—fully booked alternatives, the lost room, the missed meeting—that tell a bigger story. Corporate travel programs have the data to prevent this chaos, yet many struggle to act on it in real time.
To really understand what real-time adaptation should look like, retail offers a useful analogy. Amazon's shopping platform shows what’s possible when systems are built to adapt seamlessly.
When millions of shoppers hit “buy now” on Black Friday, Cyber Monday or during peak shopping seasons, the demand spikes that would cripple most industries barely dent Amazon’s infrastructure because the system is designed to bend long before anything breaks. The corporate travel industry, however, has struggled to manage disruption at this scale—until now.
It’s like Black Friday every day
In most industries, a Black Friday surge is a one-off: a spike in demand that strains systems temporarily. For Amazon, that level of volume is the baseline: In 2024, the company delivered over 9 billion items via same-day or next-day delivery globally. In the U.S. alone, its logistics network processed around 6.3 billion delivery orders—roughly 17.2 million orders a day—and still maintained delivery reliability rates above 97%, even during peak periods.
This resilience is intentional. As Jeff Bezos famously said, “It’s always Day 1.” The company was built on the assumption that pressure never stops and that every day brings the volatility of a peak-season spike. Inventory shifts within seconds, routes redraw themselves and fulfillment centers absorb shocks before customers ever feel them.
Amazon is designed for constant disruption. Corporate travel, by contrast, still treats disruption as the exception rather than the operating environment.
Corporate travel’s blind spot
For all the tools, systems and processes in corporate travel, one weakness has remained stubbornly consistent: how we respond when things go wrong. Disruptions hit fast, hit frequently and hit at scale, and the industry often struggles to keep up.
For years, travel teams have had to jump in manually, scrambling to rebook flights, chase down hotel availability, patch itinerary gaps and answer panicked traveler messages. And this is usually after the damage has already been done. Not because the employees are slow, but because the underlying systems weren’t designed to take action the moment a trip started to fall apart.
Artificial intelligence (AI) changes that. Instead of waiting for a human to intervene, AI can monitor every trip in motion and handle the basics automatically: rebooking the flight, securing the room, adjusting the connection, patching the itinerary and closing the gap—all done quietly, instantly and at scale. This isn’t about more data. It’s about finally having a system that acts in the moment, not after it.
Behind the scenes, agentic AI can do much more than monitor disruptions. The technology can track trips in motion and trigger automation workflows the moment disruptions are detected. In parallel, the AI agent can query global distribution systems and other booking platforms in real time, evaluate availability, fare rules, policy constraints and traveler preferences and prepare a ranked set of viable alternatives before anyone has to intervene.
The impact is immediate and profound. Instead of agents being pulled into frantic, time-consuming searches, much of the work happens quietly in the background. Agents step in only to approve or communicate solutions that are already prepared, or the process can be handled automatically. Because disruptions arrive at scale and at all hours, from weather events to large-scale shutdowns, this approach can save teams countless hours while sharply reducing friction for travelers.
Agentic AI is the travel industry's moment to shine
Corporate travel teams are increasingly using AI. A recent study found that over 90% of business travel managers are already using AI or generative AI in some capacity, mostly for reporting, traveler experience or savings analysis.
Agentic AI is not about predicting the future with perfect accuracy. It's about giving travel programs the reflexes they were missing to listen, interpret and act the moment reality shifts. This defines the next era of travel. For the first time, the technology exists to meet the moment.
Corporate travel reinvented
What excites me most about this moment isn't just the technology; though, of course, that's part of it. It's what the technology unlocks: a world where travelers feel supported, not stranded, where data serves people instead of overwhelming them and where travel programs react in real time instead of just reporting.
We're standing at the edge of a major shift, not toward more automation, but toward smarter, more responsive systems. Agentic AI is the catalyst, but the vision is much bigger. Imagine a travel ecosystem that adapts as fast as travelers do.
The opportunity in front of us isn’t to reinvent travel. It’s to take corporate travel to the next level with data-fueled productivity at the center and, most importantly, a traveler experience that finally exceeds expectations.
About the author...
Aviel Siman-Tov is the CEO and co-founder of
Oversee.