The booming market for smart speakers has prompted WEX and Ai.io to develop an end-to-end voice-activated app to handle travel booking and payments.
HaloTravel, built on the Priceline Partner Network with voice technology from Google Assistant, enables users to book hotels and flights — and pay for them — using voice commands alone, according to a Thursday press release.
Priceline provides travel options, WEX provides virtual payment card acceptance and Ai.io adds an A.I.-based tool that continuously incorporates user data to customize the experience around travel preferences and usage patterns, the release said.
Users say “Hey Google, talk to Halo Travel” to start booking a trip within the app, which targets both consumer and corporate travel customers, and took more than a year to develop, according to the release.
“Exclusively through voice command, WEX will process Priceline transactions for Halo Travel users, ensuring a seamless payment process,” said Jim Pratt, WEX’s vice president of corporate travel payments.
“This wouldn’t be possible for us to bring to market without WEX’s virtual payments technology,” said Terence Mills, CEO of Ai.io Inc., in the release.
About one in five U.S. consumers owns a smart speaker, according to a
