AI.io And WEX Partner to Bring Voice-Activated Travel App to Market: Halo Travel
January 10 2019 - 6:45AM
Business Wire
Powered by Priceline Partner Network, Halo
Travel is First to Allow Hotel and Airfare Booking with Voice AI
Technology
WEX Inc. (NYSE: WEX), an industry-leading global provider of
corporate payments solutions, today announced a partnership with
AI.io to launch Halo Travel, powered by Priceline Partner Network,
an intelligent, voice-activated chat bot for travel. Halo Travel is
the first app allowing booking hotels and flight strictly through
voice. AI.io, named as one of the Top 10 AI solutions providers in
2018 and one of the Top 50 Best Companies to Watch in 2018, created
the voice-activated product.
Halo Travel is device agnostic and can be used by anyone who has
internet access, via Google Assistant, which makes it accessible by
more than 500 million people. Users can simply say, “Hey Google,
Talk to Halo Travel,” and their entire travel transaction can be
processed via voice – without having to reach for a laptop. WEX’s
virtual payments technology is a key component to conducting the
purchase by facilitating the payment from Halo Travel to the
Priceline Partner Network.
“Halo Travel is all about customer acquisition through
innovation in one of the largest mass market consumer segments in
the world. Booking travel will be redefined with our advanced,
artificial intelligence powered chat bot. Our partnerships with
Priceline Partner Network and Google Assistant mean that hundreds
of millions of people will have unfettered voice access to one of
the largest travel inventories in the industry. After more than a
year of development and testing, it gives me great joy that it will
be our AI system that consumers will be engaging with,” said
Terence Mills, CEO AI.io Incorporated. “This wouldn’t be possible
for us to bring this to market without WEX’s virtual payments
technology.”
Halo Travel users can book flights or hotels quickly and
efficiently. The intelligent AIs learn travel habits and patterns
of users leading to extreme personalized travel assistance. The
result is an engaging, and speedy way to book travel on any device
at any time – and all you need is a voice.
“WEX is proud to help bring this travel innovation to market,
adding convenience to booking travel by providing our best-in-class
virtual payments technology,” said Jim Pratt, Senior Vice
President, Travel, WEX Corporate Payments. “Exclusively through
voice command, WEX will process Priceline transactions for Halo
Travel users, ensuring a seamless payment process.”
“We are very enthusiastic about the potential of Halo Travel,”
said Randy Schartner, president of Priceline Partner Network. “We
tested the platform at this year's CES, which was a resounding
success. We are ready to go!"
United States travelers are interested in using voice for
travel-related tasks. According to Phocuswright’s The State of
Voice In Travel, more than half of travelers are comfortable
requesting general information using a voice-powered digital
assistant. However, only a fifth to a third of travelers are
actively using voice for tasks like searching for or booking travel
products. For the first time, Halo Travel’s proprietary machine
learning and artificial intelligence neural network allows
travelers the opportunity to personalize their travel needs using
complex voice tasks – placing the entire Priceline travel
inventory, including Booking.com, at their fingertips.
About WEX Inc.Powered by the belief that complex payment
systems can be made simple, WEX Inc. (NYSE: WEX) is a leading
provider of payment processing and business solutions across a wide
spectrum of sectors, including fleet, travel and healthcare. WEX
operates in more than 10 countries and in more than 20 currencies
through more than 3,500 associates around the world. WEX fleet
cards offer 11.5 million vehicles exceptional payment security and
control; purchase volume in its travel and corporate solutions grew
to $30.3 billion in 2017; and the WEX Health financial technology
platform helps 300,000 employers and more than 25 million consumers
better manage healthcare expenses. For more information, visit
www.wexinc.com.
About AI.io IncorporatedAI.io is
creating a very exciting road ahead with a new class of AI - one
that is explainable, and that builds trust by providing evidence;
AI that can help manage bias, safe interruptability, and provide
cognition at scale that allows for extreme personalization and
ultimately leads to a better customer experience, better decision
making and increased revenue growth. The company is helping
businesses leverage AI as a strategic capability to augment, and
amplify human, and process intelligence - changing the nature of
work and how people live their lives in ways they could only have
imagined. Visit https://ai-io.io and https://halo.travel.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190110005112/en/
WEX Inc.Elisabeth
Andrewselisabeth.andrews@wexinc.com(207)
523-6121PricelineDevon Nagle, Head of
Communicationsdevon.nagle@priceline.com(203)
299-8692AI.ioAmalia RosaAmalia@ai-io.io(646) 755-3717
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