Cognizant has partnered with Travelport and Anthropic to upgrade travel technology systems using artificial intelligence, as companies in the travel industry look to modernise outdated infrastructure and improve customer service operations.
As part of the collaboration, Cognizant will integrate Anthropic’s Claude AI models into Travelport’s travel retailing and distribution platforms. The goal is to improve software development, testing and maintenance while helping travel businesses better manage increasingly complex customer requests.
The companies said the initiative is designed to close the gap between modern AI-powered travel planning tools and older booking systems that often struggle with advanced traveller requirements.
The partnership is expected to help airlines, hotels, travel agencies and travel management companies automate a range of manual processes currently handled by support staff. These include itinerary updates, ticket exchanges, refunds, rebookings and managing travel disruptions.
Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S said the travel sector relies on highly complicated technology infrastructure, and the collaboration aims to help Travelport move faster while delivering higher-quality services at scale as the travel distribution market continues to evolve.
Travelport CEO John Mangelaars said artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the travel industry and described the partnership with Cognizant and Anthropic as a major technological advantage for the company.
Initially, the project will focus on Travelport Trip Services, the platform that manages booking, exchange and servicing operations. The system will also use Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), which enables AI agents to directly interact with live travel systems and external data sources.
Anthropic’s Head of Alliances, Rich O’Connell, said Claude’s ability to process large amounts of contextual information makes it well-suited for handling the massive and complex software environments commonly found in travel infrastructure systems.
Cognizant also revealed that Claude will support AI-assisted coding, automated software testing and pull-request reviews through its Neuro AI multi-agent accelerator platform. The company believes these capabilities will help significantly speed up Travelport’s software development and delivery timelines.
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