The invisible AI adding value to World2Meet

As prevalent as AI implementation is, not all organizations approach it in the same way, or to the same degree. Many are still testing the technology, with specific and limited use cases, while others have integrated it in a way that’s transformative. The latter is the case for World2Meet (W2M), the travel division of global tourism company Iberostar Group, and a finalist in the Best AI and Intelligent Automation Project category at last year’s CIO 100 Awards for its Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) initiative.

Seeing is believing

W2M CIO Joan Barceló says IPA is essentially the invisible AI ​​that’s truly delivering value. Launched in 2023 with the goal to explore everything that could be automated and equipped to gain efficiency and productivity, IPA began to deliver results in 2025. Barceló cites specific examples of its application within their contact center, where it enabled 165,000 emails to be processed in January 2026 alone.

These emails were automatically classified using AI with a 92% success rate, and sentiment analysis was performed on every one. Furthermore, in 74% of cases, information from the emails led to retrieval of reservation details.

“What the agent receives is no longer an email without context,” Barceló says. “It’s a classified email with a summary of the situation and enriched with information needed for a response.” This represents an improvement in the efficiency of the operational workflow, and more than 33,000 hours saved annually.

In this example, there’s no direct interaction between the user or the agent with an intelligent tool, such as a chatbot, but the tool receives all this information already prepared to operate more quickly. The same applies to the thousands of calls received in the contactcenter, which are downloaded, transcribed, and analyzed with AI to extract quality indicators, such as how long the hold music played, how the agent greeted and identified itself, whether the problem was resolved, and a customer sentiment analysis.

“Before AI, we did sampling,” Barceló says. “Now you have the analysis of every daily call.” So the contact center has gone from being a customer service channel to a strategic business sensor.

Power from the people

Another example of invisible AI is with the corporate mobility business unit, which provides services for business travel. When a request is made via email or message, the AI ​​structures the text, and searches for potential transportation and accommodation quotes in the relevant systems. Once this information is gathered, it generates a proposal for the person responsible for managing the request, reviews it, and revises it before sending it to the client. “Efficiency and faster response times are gained, but we don’t lose human oversight and control,” says Barceló. “We don’t want to dehumanize the process. This technology actually supports and assists the people involved.”

However, Barceló adds that AI doesn’t just translate into time savings. The integration of intelligent automation leads to improved accuracy and perceived quality, greater consistency with corporate policies, and fewer errors. AI is no longer a specific project, but rather it connects all the technology, processes, and people in the company’s back office.

“This is the invisible AI ​​behind closed doors, not face-to-face with the end customer,” he says, adding that IPA isn’t limited to its own developments, but also includes the integration of third-party systems such as Samsara, the technology used by W2M’s carrier in Mexico. This solution provides an intelligent monitoring system with geolocation and cameras, which has significantly reduced speed-related incidents, fuel consumption, and maintenance costs.

Working with AI

In the deployment of this invisible AI, the IT team is connected to the different business areas. While initially it was the technology department that identified potential use cases for integrating AI, this has changed now that its use has spread throughout the company and is better understood.

In this sense, Barceló mentions demand from the business areas themselves, but also the work of the cross-functional process area, which is responsible for reviewing, redesigning, and innovating ​​procedures. “It’s true we’ve asked them not to request AI use cases,” he says. “That is, they have to explain their problem to us, and we’ll provide a solution. It’s not always AI, though. Some issues are solved with an algorithm, others with very simple programming. Some are pure and simple automation, and nothing more needs to be done, and some involve AI, but not always generative AI. The important thing is to see which one to apply in each case.”

Simply put, the IT side has to truly address existing needs. “We have this strategic component of offering technology with a purpose, not technology for technology’s sake,” he says. In this sense, IPA wasn’t born as an isolated technology innovator but as a direct response to W2M’s strategy to focus on maintaining the traveler experience as a differentiator, which requires scaling efficiency, speed, and operations while maintaining control over both consistency and costs. “It allows us to orchestrate the process, unify data, reduce silos, and free up operational time,” says Barceló. “It doesn’t replace the human element but amplifies that capacity.”