Coup de Grace: Meet EPAM's AI-powered Travel Assistant and Chatbot

Coup de Grace: Meet EPAM's AI-powered Travel Assistant and Chatbot

BTN's survey showed most companies remain in the testing in exploring stage in their deployment of AI in travel management, but some organizations have advanced to more comprehensive utilization. One is IT services and consulting firm EPAM Systems, which has embedded AI tools into employee workflows to guide travelers' choices, surface policy requirements and reduce reliance on manual intervention. 

"The goal is to use AI to create a better experience for our employees and at the same time deliver measurable value and efficiencies for our business," said EPAM head of global travel, expense, credit card and remote work Donna Rufo.  

The Company's first foray into an AI-powered travel application was a chatbot in the Microsoft Teams platform named Grace Helper, designed to offer employees instant answers to travel questions at any time of the day. Grace went live after a three-month beta test in which "we just asked tons of questions to her, and everything she got wrong, we would go back to our knowledge base or intranet page and change how we phrase our information so she's able to pick up the right answers," Rufo said. 

The chatbot now "saves about 120 minutes per employee per month because we do measure our results," Rufo said. 

Rufo's team internally has developed AI-powered employee-facing calculators and guided workflows around trip planning, visa requirements and other administrative tasks to save time and reduce friction.  

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Explore career opportunities at a company where AI is part of how we work every day: epam.com/careers