How McKinsey Transformed Corporate Travel with AI

McKinsey & Company's consultants are among the most traveled professionals in the world. With teams deployed across every continent, flights and hotels aren't perks — they're the infrastructure of the business.

But for years, booking that travel was anything but efficient. Colleagues spent an average of 10 to 15 minutes per booking, navigating clunky online booking tools, toggling between tabs, entering redundant information, and second-guessing whether their selections complied with firm policy. For consultants billing by the hour, those minutes added up fast.

McKinsey needed more than an incremental improvement. They needed a fundamentally different approach — one that met consultants where they already worked, understood their preferences from day one, and got out of the way.

McKinsey's Director of Travel & Events Technology, Jamie Stewart, began piloting SkyLink in October 2024 and launched it formally across North America in April 2025 — with European rollout now underway. The tool integrates directly into the firm's Slack workflows. Instead of opening a separate booking tool, consultants simply send a message. SkyLink handles the rest.

For every search, the system returns three air itinerary options based on company policy, the traveler's profile, loyalty affinities, and booking history. The lowest logical fare is clearly flagged. International travelers are prompted to book roundtrip fares instead of one-way, and every flow asks the user to add a hotel — all within the same conversation. Project codes allow expenses to be allocated automatically.

Stewart also brought American Express Global Business Travel into the mix, integrating agency content via the Sabre GDS — with Amadeus content now being added for the European rollout. When self-service automation isn't possible, Amex GBT seamlessly services the booking. Travelers always have the option to fall back to traditional online booking or agency-assisted reservations, but increasingly they don't.

What set this deployment apart wasn't just the technology — it was the collaboration. McKinsey and SkyLink didn't treat this as a vendor implementation. They co-built the product, shaping everything from the user experience to carrier prioritization to how many flight options to display.

That partnership extended to how support works. Instead of requiring colleagues to leave their workflow, SkyLink provides help directly inside the chat platform — meeting users where they already are, rather than sending them to external sites or email threads.