The new alliance aims to simplify business travel with AI-powered integration — but legacy complexity may be hard to escape
Oct 7, 2025
American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) and SAP Concur have formed a strategic alliance to merge travel booking, expense management, and payments into a single AI-powered platform called Complete. The partnership marks a shift from simple software integration to full-scale co-development — aiming to create a seamless, data-driven experience for corporate travelers and finance teams.
Key takeaways
- From integration to co-creation: The alliance moves beyond traditional API connections to jointly develop new technology and shared AI capabilities under the product Complete.
- Unified experience: Complete will combine booking, servicing, expense, payments, and marketplace functions into one interface — supported by a single Amex GBT and SAP Concur team.
- AI-powered personalization: Both companies will merge data from millions of trips and transactions to deliver real-time insights, predictive personalization, and improved policy compliance.
- Egencia’s central role: Egencia customers will gain direct integration with Concur Expense, offering midmarket and tech-savvy firms a fully connected, configurable travel and expense solution.
- Competitive response: The move positions Amex GBT and SAP Concur against fast-growing platforms like Navan, which are reshaping business travel with end-to-end, AI-driven tools.
- Potential downside: While promising simplicity for current users, the partnership could lock clients deeper into a closed ecosystem, limiting flexibility for those seeking more open or modular solutions.
- Roadmap: Complete will debut for mutual customers in late 2025, with quarterly feature releases beginning in 2026, reflecting both firms’ long-term investment in an integrated travel-expense ecosystem.
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