American Express taps Microsoft for expenses tool

By Gloria Methri

American Express is expanding its decades-long relationship with Microsoft to develop a suite of solutions built on Microsoft Cloud and AI technologies focused on reducing business travel friction for employees and businesses.

The first solution developed through this collaboration will enhance the expense management process by addressing some of the pain points business travellers and expense processors face.

Using AI and machine learning capabilities, the solution will simplify and automate manual expense reporting and approvals, enhancing audit efficacy, and streamlining reconciliation and reimbursements for accounting teams.

Microsoft will pilot the solution with its employees, by integrating it into the company’s internal expense system later this year. The solution will be made available to other American Express Corporate clients over time, with the ability to integrate into other expense management tools.

“Imagine a future where most of your expenses are simply ‘auto-submitted’ and ‘auto-approved,’ requiring no manual intervention and adhering to your companies’ policies and spending limits. By combining our customer insights and data, purposeful technology innovation, and a collaboration with an industry leader like Microsoft, we are creating a solution that addresses these needs with a seamless experience for the employee,” said Gunther Bright, Executive Vice President, Global Commercial Services at American Express.

“Advanced technologies like Microsoft Azure AI and machine learning provide powerful, new opportunities to reimagine pervasive, time-consuming manual processes,” said Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft. “We look forward to collaborating with American Express to simplify expense management and deliver intelligent digital capabilities to improve the lives of business travelers and employees.”

According to an American Express Expense Management Trendex survey, which polled business travellers and travel expense processors, the expense management process is a major pain point today that needs to be updated. The new solution is part of American Express’ efforts to redefine the end-to-end payments experience globally, both for travellers and companies.