Grapevine, the AI-powered traveller communications platform, and Jyrney, the managed ground transport platform, have partnered to bring an agentic AI solution to business travellers.
The technology enables travellers to book a taxi, ride-hail or chauffeur simply by sending a text or voice message.
The solution uses Sophie, Grapevine’s conversational AI assistant, to handle the conversation on WhatsApp, Slack and Microsoft Teams, while Jyrney’s aggregated network of providers delivers the ride.
Jack Dow, Founder and CEO of Grapevine, said travellers will “now get the magic of AI alongside the certainty of a confirmed booking”.
“With 72% of travellers already using AI tools when organising travel, conversational AI is increasingly an expectation,” he said.
“But large language models (LLMs) on their own are probabilistic. They guess the next word: superb in conversation, less certain in transactions.
“A booking that is ‘probably right’ is not good enough when a traveller is standing at arrivals at 11pm. Sophie is an agentic AI that blends probabilistic AI to handle the conversation and intent, with deterministic booking flows that handle the transaction itself.”
Dow added: “Travellers love interacting with LLMs, and rightly so: they are extraordinary. But the booking process contains a lot of variables: clarifications on pickup and drop off locations, quotes, bookings, amendments and cancellations. These changes tend to confuse public LLMs, so we’ve focused heavily on building an agentic solution that blends probabilistic conversation with deterministic booking flows.”
He said Sophie can run as a standalone product, set up in under an hour, which is particularly useful for events and unprofiled travellers, since every booking goes on account with no traveller profile required. Alternatively, she can be linked to Grapevine’s proactive traveller messaging.
Grapevine is already integrated with the TMC’s booking data and sends right time, right channel suggestions for hotels. This means, a day or two before a trip, Sophie can also message the traveller to suggest a taxi to the airport.
“Because she has the flight details, she can offer a transfer at the other end too, straight to the hotel on file, and the same again in reverse,” said Dow.
“The AI also tracks the flight so the driver knows when they land. Travellers can now be offered a truly end-to-end, managed experience, and all on account so not a receipt in sight.”
Meanwhile, Jyrney’s system tracks and reallocates late dispatches, and if anything goes wrong with a booking Jyrney’s team is on standby to resolve it.
Jyrney aggregates taxi, ride-hail and chauffeur supply from global brands such as Bolt and Blacklane alongside local operators into a single point of booking.
“Partnering with Grapevine puts managed ground transport exactly where travellers already are: in their messaging channel of choice. Behind the conversation sits everything both TMCs and their corporate clients need: aggregated supply, account-based billing and a managed service that takes disruption off their hands,” said Daniel Price, CEO of Jyrney.
Alongside taxis, Grapevine will shortly be rolling out airport parking and visas as it focuses on non-discretionary spend.
