How SAP Concur is using AI to transform business travel, expense, and compliance

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a futuristic concept – it's a transformative force reshaping how organisations manage business travel, expenses, and invoice operations. At SAP Concur, AI isn’t about replacing humans. It’s about making life easier for people doing mundane audit-type tasks and empowering them in roles where they can add more value. 

The AI revolution in spend management 

Fred Fredericks, SVP, Chief Product Officer, and Head of Engineering at SAP Concur, sums it up perfectly: 

“Only two other innovations during our lifetimes have been as transformative as AI’s large language models: Google’s web search and the iPhone.” 

Just as those technologies revolutionised access to information and personal computing, AI is reshaping how businesses approach compliance, auditing, and expense reporting. 

Breaking the trade-off: Speed vs compliance 

Historically, businesses had to choose between speed and control. But AI enables both. Chris Juneau, Head of Market Strategy at SAP Concur, explains: 

“AI removes the trade-offs organisations historically had to make between efficiency and compliance in their travel and expense processes.” 

Through AI-driven insights, intelligent auditing, and natural language interfaces, businesses can enforce policies, streamline operations, and proactively identify risks – all in real-time. 

 

Get your guide to AI-driven travel and expense transformation. 

Discover how SAP Concur is using AI to simplify business travel, expense, and compliance - making it smarter, faster, and more efficient. 

Download your free whitepaper here

AI solutions solving real business challenges 

SAP Concur builds AI to solve real problems: 

• Accurate travel cost estimation: By using large language models alongside travel policies and data, users can estimate the cost of flights, accommodation, meals, and transport – just by entering a sentence. 

• Receipt itemisation: Optical character recognition (OCR) and AI work together to extract, interpret, and categorise information from complex receipts, reducing errors and saving time. 

• Mobile expense management: With tools like ExpenseIt, employees simply take a photo of a receipt, and AI creates and populates expense claims – in multiple languages and currencies. 

“With AI-infused solutions, the system will advise them of the problem and say, ‘We can fix it right now – just click this button. This is where customers will start realising the value of AI, and it will lead to a back office that practically manages itself. We’ll be able to provide customers insights before they even think about asking the question.” 
— Tim Lebel, VP, Head of Spend Products, SAP Concur 

Ethical, transparent, and human-centred AI 

SAP was the first European technology company to release AI ethics guiding principles and to form an outside ethics advisory panel. These principles include: 

• We are driven by our values.  

• We design for people.  

• We enable businesses beyond bias.  

• We strive for transparency and integrity.  

• We uphold quality and safety standards.  

• We place data protection and privacy at our core.  

• We engage with the wider societal challenges of AI. 

“For people to trust in AI solutions, their development must be governed by clear moral rules.” 
— SAP AI Ethics Handbook 

Unlike many companies in the artificial intelligence space, SAP Concur develops solutions specifically for businesses and their challenges. At the same time, the technology – and the big decisions and value judgments – remains under human control.  

“When there’s a true value decision that needs to be made, the computer can give you your options. But humans have to decide. Machines don’t have the emotional capability to actually make a true judgment. And that’s where humans will always win.”” 
— Fred Fredericks 

AI that supports people – not replaces them 

AI at SAP Concur is designed to augment human work, not eliminate it. As Dan Barker, Senior Director at SAP Concur, explains: 

“This is less about job loss and more about making those jobs better.” 

AI excels at repetitive, data-intensive tasks – giving employees more time to focus on strategic work. Real-world tools already making a difference include: 

• Intelligent Audit: Combines AI with human auditors to flag wasteful or non-compliant spend. 

• Concur Detect by Oversight: Identifies patterns and anomalies across post-payment transactions. 

Responsible use of data – A competitive advantage 

With a 49.4% market share in travel and expense (T&E) software, SAP Concur holds a unique advantage: access to a vast dataset of global spending behaviours, policies, and compliance patterns. 

SAP Concur has massive amounts of customer data, information used to inform our solutions and provide the insights and benchmarks companies need to guide operations and strategies. But that information on policies, spending preferences, and historical patterns is proprietary. And it will stay that way.  

SAP will use generative AI and large language models to enrich insights but won’t allow a customer’s information – their data – to be used to train another technology company’s large language model (and be set free in the wild). 

A glimpse into the future of AI-driven business 

The future lies in proactive, not reactive, business operations. AI technology in SAP Concur is helping businesses shift from back-end analysis to real-time action. 

Imagine asking: 

• “How many expense reports are awaiting approval?” 

• “Is this expense within policy?” 

With conversational AI, employees get instant, clear answers without wading through documents or dashboards. 

Navigating the AI landscape responsibly 

Before adopting AI solutions, businesses must ask the right questions: 

• What specific business challenge are we trying to solve? 

• How will we measure the return on investment? 

• Are our AI tools secure, transparent, and governed responsibly? 

“You need to ask questions about what problems you are trying to solve. And then can you measure those efficiencies or potential gains? A large language model isn’t inexpensive to run. If you’re going to invest money toward that, you need to be able to measure the value that comes out of it.” 
— Theodora Lau, FinTech writer & podcaster 

Final thoughts: AI-powered solutions built for business 

SAP Concur is at the forefront of AI in business travel and expense management. Our commitment to innovation, ethics, and human value is what truly sets us apart. 

From real-time insights to intuitive mobile apps, SAP Concur is building a future where travel and expense practically manage themselves — helping organisations stay compliant, reduce risk, and empower their people. 

Here are some helpful resources on how AI is being applied to SAP Concur technology: 

• How to leverage business AI in travel and expense to gain a competitive advantage 

• CFO Insights: Why Finance Is Ready for a Breakout Transformation with AI