By Brian Veloso, Managing Director at SAP Concur Canada

What would you give to never file another expense report yourself? AI is making that promise a reality, and for Canadian businesses, the opportunity is becoming increasingly relevant as employees look for more seamless ways to plan and manage business travel.  

According to data from SAP Concur, 75% of business travellers have used AI tools to support some aspects of business travel.In Canada, that appetite is becoming increasingly specific. According to the same research, 38% of Canadian business travellers want AI embedded in calendars and email, while 26% want it in Teams or Slack and another 26% want proactive booking notifications

The broader Canadian business community is also moving toward more autonomous forms of AI. A recent KPMG Canadasurvey found that 27% of Canadian organizations had already deployed agentic AI, while another 64% were exploring, experimenting with or piloting the technology. More than half (57%) planned to invest in or adopt agentic AI within six months, while 88% said they believed it would help their organizations become more competitive.

Generative AI features can execute standalone tasks such as identifying fraud, detecting non-compliant spending, and surfacing details human eyes might miss, but they can’t independently take action across business data or systems.

Agentic AI is the next phase of AI-powered travel and expense (T&E) management. Unlike features that execute a single action, an AI agent can run through multiple agentic loops, make decisions, use tools, and adapt based on intermediate results — all within a defined scope. IDC predicts that by 2030, 30% of travel bookings will be completed by AI agents.

For Canadian businesses, this evolution is particularly relevant as organizations look to turn AI investment into measurable productivity and competitiveness. KPMG Canada found that while 93% of Canadian businesses are using AI in some form, only 31% have fully integrated generative AI across their core operations and workflows, highlighting the gap between adoption and meaningful integration.

That’s big news for leaders, but many are still unclear about what agents can offer. Here’s what you need to know about agentic AI capabilities in T&E.

Improving workflows without replacing humans

Agentic AI isn’t about replacing human workers; it’s about redefining how the work gets done. Traditionally, T&E management demanded manual effort at every stage: defining, executing, and evaluating every step. Agentic AI shifts T&E from reactive to proactive automation; it offers intelligent support, offloading manual and repetitive takes to move employees up the value chain. It eliminates the barriers of siloed systems and task-based automations, so people’s work becomes more strategic, intentional, and valuable, not just more productive.  

Agentic AI sets a new standard for T&E management

AI agents can autonomously plan, orchestrate, and complete complex workflows. This powers a toolbox of T&E cases, from booking policy-compliant flights and accommodation to coordinating diaries and arranging off-site meetings that minimize disruption and costs. All while maintaining human control.

Rather than awaiting step-by-step instructions, AI agents work under defined guardrails, clear objectives, and appropriate permissions to complete real work.

Agentic AI use cases in business travel

AI agents provide end-to-end travel booking and management support. They plan trips from origin to destination, based on personal preferences, travel history, and corporate policies, and reactively help coordinate flight, hotel, and rental car options when disruption hits.

For example, booking agents can identify and reserve the best-fit flight and hotel options in response to natural-language queries. They can also flag the added costs associated with making changes to an existing flight or hotel booking, so travellers know what costs might be incurred ahead of time. This eliminates any last-minute surprises or disruptions. Directly accessible from inside T&E platforms, they help reduce distracting exits from deep work and minimize time-consuming reviews of corporate travel policies. 

In parallel, meeting planning agents can help streamline the arduous process of planning off-site meetings, subject to many individual schedules. They can identify the most cost-effective locations and slots, based on travel budgets and company policy. 

As organizations deploy AI agents across tools, applications within travel are optimizing how time is spent and empowering employees to focus on business growth – particularly within uniquely human aspects of business travel, such as relationship-building.

Agentic AI use cases in expense management

AI agents can collect, analyze, and validate receipts to automatically compile an expense report. This streamlines the process for travellers and the approval chain in the back office.

Agents that automate expense submission help assemble reports from the moment of transaction by automatically loading details for employees to review. Pre-submission check agents audit for compliance issues such as missing data, duplicate expenses, and receipt-expense mismatches to ensure every field is complete.

If data is missing, agents cross-reference vendor names, itineraries, travel history, and other contextual sources to fill in missing information without human intervention.

Expense agents act as a “second pair of eyes,” offering real-time resolution suggestions before a report is even submitted. They help prevent returned reports and save managers, employees, and finance teams from the headache of repeated review cycles. 

Turning T&E software into a competitive edge

When employees are freed from administrative friction, they can focus on the higher-value work they were hired to do – from salespeople closing deals to procurement officers auditing new suppliers.

Agentic AI connects departments, systems, and processes to get work done – without the constant handholding of a human employee. And it’s enabling productivity from inside the systems the workforce already uses, e.g. sales reps can book customer visits directly from their Sales Cloud CRM.

By embracing agentic AI, Canadian organizations can stitch together the full business estate to enable better, faster T&E management – and turn everyday business software into a tool for productivity, growth, and employee experience.