Why emerging markets are moving faster on agentic AI in corporate travel
While mature markets debate when AI will deliver, Latin America is already reporting results. Here is what the global industry can learn from markets that could not afford to wait.
The conversation about artificial intelligence in corporate travel has, for the past two years, been dominated by the same question: when will the technology move from promise to practice? The answer, increasingly, is found in places the industry does not typically associate with technological leadership.
Across emerging markets, and particularly in Latin America, agentic AI is no longer a roadmap item. It is an operational reality. Companies are deploying autonomous agents that monitor airfare pricing in real time, audit hotel rate availability continuously, and interact directly with travelers to reinforce expense policy compliance. The results are measurable, the scale is growing, and the lessons, I believe, are relevant for the global industry.
This piece is my attempt to contribute to that conversation as a practitioner working in one of those emerging markets, and as someone who believes our industry has much to gain from looking beyond its traditional centers of innovation.
The pragmatic pressure of scale and urgency
One of the reasons emerging markets have moved quickly is structural. Complexity, currency volatility, fragmented supplier ecosystems, and rapid shifts in cost baselines create an environment where the marginal value of every efficiency gain is significantly higher than in more stable markets. When airfare increases of 10% or 15% can materially affect a company’s quarterly results, the appetite for solutions that deliver immediate, verifiable savings grows accordingly.
This pressure has shaped how emerging market enterprises approach technology adoption. Rather than pursuing long pilot cycles or waiting for global standards to mature, they tend to evaluate tools by a simpler question: does this work today, and can it generate measurable value this quarter? That orientation, while sometimes criticized as short-term, has an important side effect. It forces technology providers to build solutions that are genuinely operational from day one, rather than conceptual showcases.
From automation to autonomy
The distinction between generative AI and agentic AI has become central to how the corporate travel industry is evolving. Generative AI, broadly speaking, produces outputs when prompted. Agentic AI, by contrast, observes, decides and acts autonomously within defined boundaries. In corporate travel, that distinction translates into very different value propositions.
An AI that helps a traveler draft a trip request is useful. An AI that continuously monitors issued air tickets, identifies when a more economical alternative becomes available, automatically submits the reissue for approval, and notifies the traveler of the change is transformative. The first reduces effort. The second reduces cost, at scale, without demanding additional bandwidth from travel managers, procurement teams, or the travelers themselves.
In Latin America, this second category of AI is already in production. The results reported so far include average savings of 15% on air ticket volume issued, recovery of negotiated hotel rates that would otherwise remain unavailable, and structured compliance improvements in corporate expense management. These are not projections. They are documented outcomes, drawn from enterprise clients operating in sectors ranging from financial services to transportation and logistics.
What the global industry can take from this
I do not claim that emerging markets have solved what more mature markets are still working through. Many of the challenges that Latin American travel managers face, from data fragmentation to policy compliance to supplier coverage, are the same challenges that define the global industry today. What I do believe is that the path to operational AI may not unfold uniformly across regions, and that the lessons from markets moving faster deserve attention.
Three observations stand out to me.
First, the most effective AI deployments in corporate travel are narrow and deep. Agents that solve one well-defined problem with high precision tend to generate more value, and more trust, than generalist AI systems attempting to manage the entire traveler journey. Starting small, with clear metrics, is a more durable path to scale than starting ambitious.
Second, the human role does not shrink, but shifts. As AI takes on continuous, high-frequency operational tasks, the role of the travel manager becomes more strategic, more consultative and more connected to enterprise decision-making. This is a positive evolution for the profession, but it requires deliberate support from associations, employers and technology providers alike.
Third, trust is built through transparency. The most successful AI implementations I have observed are those where travelers, travel managers and corporate leadership can clearly see what the AI did, why it did it, and what outcome it produced. Opaque automation generates resistance. Transparent automation generates advocacy.
A global conversation worth having
The corporate travel industry has always benefited from cross-regional exchange. The best practices developed in North America have shaped programs across Europe, Asia and Latin America for decades. The flow of insight, in my view, should be bidirectional. Markets that are moving quickly on AI, often out of necessity, have accumulated experience that can inform the global conversation in meaningful ways.
As someone who has spent the past decade working at the intersection of corporate travel and technology in Latin America, I am genuinely enthusiastic about the opportunity to contribute to the global dialogue that GBTA convenes. My hope is that this piece serves as a starting point, and that future contributions can deepen the conversation on how AI, human expertise and industry standards will evolve together in the years ahead.
About me
I am an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience at the intersection of tourism and technology. I am co-founder and Chief Business Officer of VOLL, the largest mobile-first corporate travel and expense management platform in Latin America, and a recognized reference in the development of the corporate travel industry.
A Marketing specialist from Fundação Dom Cabral, I serve on the Tourism Council of FecomércioSP and on the Executive Council of the Latin American Association of Corporate Events and Travel Management (Alagev). A frequent traveler and close observer of human behavior in motion, I write and speak about innovation, digital transformation, entrepreneurial leadership, and the future of corporate travel.