Wex, a provider of corporate payments solutions, has partnered with AI.io to launch Halo Travel, an intelligent, voice-activated chat bot for travel powered by the Priceline Partner Network. The companies say Halo Travel is the first app allowing booking hotels and flight strictly through voice. AI.io 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 the entire travel transaction can be processed via voice. 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,” AI.io CEO Terence Mills said in a statement. “Booking travel will be redefined with our advanced, artificial intelligence powered chatbot. 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 [artificial intelligence] system that consumers will be engaging with.”
Halo Travel’s proprietary machine learning and artificial intelligence neural network allows travelers the opportunity to personalize travel needs using complex voice tasks.
“Exclusively through voice command, Wex will process Priceline transactions for Halo Travel users, ensuring a seamless payment process,” said Jim Pratt, SVP of travel for Wex.