What should we expect from the Fusion Exchange Paris event organised by Concur?
Damien Palausi – There will be various workshops, including on product updates and travel & expense. The event will broadly cover the elements that were discussed at Fusion US, in New Orleans. The idea is to showcase two main areas: continuing to advance user experience improvements and compliance, particularly with the upcoming electronic invoicing. These are the main pillars of our roadmap at Concur: compliance, user experience, and data visibility.
What is the main current news for SAP Concur?
Damien Palausi – If there's one thing to take away from Concur these days, it's Joule. It's both an assistant you can chat with, and it's also integrated AI – transparent, invisible – that will simplify booking and expense reports. We launched Joule on Concur in October 2025, and it's possible to start through an SAP solution, whether it's the ERP or our HR solutions, and still ask a question about your expenses or your trips. Joule will understand the context of the question and answer it, or take the user directly to Concur or another SAP solution. It's truly SAP's major technological breakthrough in recent months.
What are the practical applications for travellers?
Damien Palausi – More recently, what I also find very powerful is the integration between Joule and Microsoft tools like Teams and Copilot. For all our clients who use these tools – and there are many – this will allow them to interact with Joule, and therefore with Concur, but outside of Concur. This is quite powerful for those who submit an expense report or travel just once a year, who aren't very familiar with the solution, and who don't know where to find Concur among the vast array of solutions a client might have. They just need to launch the Joule agent in Copilot and say: “Help me create my expense report, help me book a trip to Orlando from such a date to such a date.” For me, this is really the foundation upon which the suite rests, as many things in the roadmap are built on Joule.
What are the upcoming features, then?
Damien Palausi – On the travel side, Joule currently allows you to book a trip. By June, you'll also be able to modify trips. We're building it brick by brick. And using this assistant for booking and modifying trips is free. Then, there will be fees for further functionalities, but basically, all our clients can use this assistant for free. Still concerning user experience, we'll also be able to integrate elements of corporate policy. The employee will be able to ask Joule: "I'm going to Berlin, what's my city cap for hotels, the ceiling for restaurants?" And Joule will look into the client's documentation to give the correct answer.
And on Complete, your solution in alliance with Amex GBT?
Damien Palausi – Joule is now available in Complete. 2e This quarter, we're going to go a bit further by integrating Amex GBT's human support teams into Joule. A user will be able to start a conversation with Joule, so with the AI. And if the question is complex or requires human support, Joule will automatically switch to Amex GBT's human support, for a seamless experience. There has also been a very recent integration between Concur Expense and Egencia. Beyond a basic integration of sending travel data, we will also integrate electronic receipts, so that the expense report can be completed directly with all the information from Egencia. We will have almost the same experience with Concur Travel or Egencia.
Are there also any new developments regarding payments?
Damien Palausi – Yes, there's a lot of news. On virtual cards, we've worked with Conferma for a long time. Today, we're working directly with banks. This is being rolled out with Amex in particular – it will be available on the 2nde quarter – so that admins can easily create virtual cards for employees. This helps avoid advances on expenses or expensive card programmes. Above all, it improves compliance, as all expense elements will come directly from the virtual card. There will also be real-time notifications – particularly via the MasterCard network.
Which brings us to the electronic invoice, a major reform expected on 1er septembre
Damien Palausi – Precisely. In concrete terms, all companies will have to have approved platforms that will create and receive electronic invoices. An employee paying for a restaurant or hotel tomorrow will have to request an electronic invoice, providing information about their company and their registration number. As soon as the electronic invoice is issued, it will be sent to the company's approved platform, which will receive it. And automatically, there will be a connection with Concur: the platform will send the expense to Concur and create the expense. The employee will no longer even need to take a photo. All data will be uploaded automatically.
Are you ready for this major step?
Damien Palausi – We are finalising everything. The process is established, only the technical interface between Concur and the approved platforms remains. After Germany, Belgium and Poland, we will be ready for the French market from the 1ster September.
Let's revisit the rapprochement with Amex GBT. Do Concur and Amex's AIs feed into each other?
Damien Palausi – For now, Complete entirely features Joule. In the roadmap, Joule will be enhanced with elements from Amex GBT. And that's where Concur Travel will differentiate itself slightly from Complete: Concur Travel will remain on Joule's technologies, whereas Complete will be enriched with complementary elements from Amex GBT. In relation to Egencia, these are truly two distinct tools. Egencia has its own chatbot which, just like Joule, allows for bookings to be made. What's important to see between Egencia and Concur Expense is truly a very advanced integration, as we will also have e-receipts, which other expense solutions do not offer.
Doesn't this consolidation between Concur, Amex, Egencia and CWT worry the market?
Damien Palausi – This is raising questions among our agency partners. But we've been clear from the outset. Internally, we are still holding discussions with our long-standing partners. Concur Travel remains a tool in its own right. It's clearly in response to players like Navan that we have a more integrated solution, which will enable us to go faster and further. The problem is that if we have to reach agreement with all the travel agencies to develop new functionalities, that takes a lot of time. The idea behind the alliance with Amex GBT was above all to offer our customers the chance to move faster with new uses. But we are keeping Concur Travel's independence, and it will remain a tool in its own right, which we will continue to develop. We have a number of customers who don't want to work with Amex GBT. That's why it's important to continue investing in Concur Travel and in our relationships with other partners. There have been discussions with our partners. But everything has calmed down. Everyone understands where we want to go. And I say that because this is clearly not a takeover.
Let's talk about CSR and carbon footprint. How does Concur position itself on this issue?
Damien Palausi – We have a partnership with TrustCarbon: we send them the data so they can consolidate these elements. We also have some in-house features, particularly regarding mileage expenses: visibility and calculation of carbon emissions, distinguishing between electric and internal combustion engine vehicles. There was also a CO₂ budget tracking module in the pipeline – setting a carbon budget per entity and seeing how it’s impacted by flights, mileage expenses, etc. But I still haven’t seen it on the roadmap. To be honest, two years ago, we had two strategic priorities: AI and sustainability. Now it’s AI. Sincerely, sustainability no longer interests our clients as much. When we tried to push these topics at events, there wasn’t much interest. It’s sad, but it’s the reality. Today, we are really relying on our partners, particularly TrustCarbon, and travel agencies, which often have richer information.
And on the duty of care, passenger safety, in a tense international context?
Damien Palausi – It's the same logic. Six years ago, we released a solution called Locate, a sort of dashboard to know where travellers were in case of alerts. We realised that our clients weren't really interested in it. Today, much like with TrustCarbon, we rely on partners like International SOS and travel agencies, and we enrich it with expense data. We had invested in these solutions, but they didn't find their market, so we now rely on partners who are better than us. Each to their own speciality.
How does a company make its choice today in the travel and expense landscape?
Damien Palausi – The first question to ask is the geographical scope: am I a purely French company or an international group? If it's international, the support needs are quite particular — will the OBT and the expense tool be able to take into account local needs, which are often very complex and sometimes even unknown to the company itself? And then, how is support handled. And what is much more important than before, is the user experience.
Isn't SAP Concur's history a disadvantage when facing newer competitors, who advocate for a certain "youth bias" and have integrated AI from the start?
Damien Palausi – The strength of Navan is that they are both an OBT and a travel agency. For mid-market companies, it's one less contract, it's simpler to manage. And frankly, it's a sentiment I hear. We did suffer for a while with the old version of Concur Travel, which could seem a bit dated. With New Concur Travel, we've taken a leap forward, even though it took time to be released, segment by segment. Now, with Joule, we're up to scratch. And by the summer, especially with the SNCF finally being available on Concur Travel, we'll be up to scratch.
The nerve of war remains: the financial aspect...
Damien Palausi – Yes, the difference is also made on pricing, Navan being quite aggressive, and on the need for support. For simple needs, purely French companies, it is often sufficient. For more complex needs, a combination of OBT and a travel agency still makes more sense.
