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Accenture will build an AI-powered trip booking chatbot for Amadeus, one of the world’s largest makers of business travel software.

The deal also involves two other companies: Microsoft, which is supplying the technological building blocks from which the chatbot will be built, and Avanade.

Avanade is worth a paragraph of its own. It’s a consulting firm that was jointly set up by Accenture and Microsoft in 2000 to help mutual corporate clients roll out the latter company’s technology products internally.

Avanade is much larger than the typical joint venture. It has more than 50,000 employees in dozens of countries and boasts a client list that includes many Global Fortune 500 firms.

Amadeus, the company for which Accenture and Avanade are building the chatbot, is a Spanish maker of business travel and expense management software. Its software is used by big companies that need to ensure their employees’ business trips comply with departmental budget restrictions and other corporate requirements.

The chatbot Accenture and Avanade are building will be incorporated into Amadeus’ Cytric Easy travel software. It’s to be powered by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, which offers OpenAI’s conversational AI models together with a set of complementary features provided by Microsoft.

The Cytric Easy chatbot will enable users to plan business trips, make the necessary reservations and perform post-trip administration work. It’s designed to be operated entirely with natural language instructions.

Amadeus says that Cytric Easy’s chatbot will take into account factors like corporate budget limits when booking a flight for an employee. If a user makes a request that isn’t entirely clear, the AI will be able to ask for clarification to ensure no errors get into the travel booking workflow.

These conversation travel planning features will also be available via Microsoft 365 Copilot. This is a chatbot that the Windows maker recently built into its Office apps. 

“We are at an extraordinary moment in the technology landscape, where AI is reshaping industries like travel and transforming how we work,” commented Microsoft executive Feliz Montpellier. “Through expanded integrations between Microsoft and Amadeus, we will create more value for corporations and much more personalized and productive experiences for travelers.”

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