SpainTravel and aviation2024 – ongoingHBX Group International plc
AI-first customer service with virtual assistants
HBX Group said AI alone handled 20% of customer service contacts where its virtual assistants were deployed
Problem
HBX Group, a travel distribution company present in 170 countries, handles a high volume of customer enquiries and bookings across chat, email and web.
Approach
In June 2024 HBX announced an AI-first service model built on Google Cloud Contact Center AI and Gemini, with the specialist provider Emergya. It was to launch in stages across all service channels over several months. By April 2025 the assistants handled frequent queries, requests and bookings. HBX also added an AI tool that simulates customers to train new agents, and planned more multilingual assistants.
Results
Takeaway
The 20% figure covers only the areas where the assistants were live. HBX did not say what share of all contacts that represents.
Categories
- Industry
- Travel and aviation
- Business function
- Customer service
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Conversational and voice AIGenerative AI
- Adoption
- Partner co-development
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
HBX's release says AI already handles 20% of customer service contacts exclusively in the areas where it is deployed. It says response times for common requests fell to seconds and describes an AI training tool for new agents.
A Palma-datelined release announcing the AI-first service model. It names Google Cloud Contact Center AI, Gemini and Emergya, and says the launch would be staged over the following months.
Full details are in the original sources.
