Tern Launches Embedded Agentic AI to Take Over Back-Office Admin Work

Travel technology platform Tern today officially launched an integrated agentic AI assistant designed to take over the repetitive administrative work stalling modern travel advisors.

The agentic AI assistant will be fully embedded into Tern’s CRM, allowing it to function as a personal assistant that reads emails, drafts messages, builds itineraries, and more—all tasks that advisors previously had to do themselves (either manually or on a platform like ChatGPT) or hire an admin to handle.

“An LLM that can do work on your behalf—creating and updating trips—is an agent, as opposed to a chatbot just responding to you,” Tern CEO David Shull told TMR ahead of the launch today. “People used to go to ChatGPT, say ‘create an itinerary for me,’ and paste it into our importer. Now, they can just do that directly in Tern.”

Because it is fully embedded and not an outside LLM like ChatGPT, the assistant not only knows an advisor and an advisor’s business—giving it access to the data and info it needs to personalize its work—but is also secure. This setup makes it safe for personal and sensitive data, like passport numbers or credit cards, to be part of the conversations.

According to Shull, data privacy has become a primary anxiety for host agency executives as independent contractors increasingly turn to free consumer AI platforms that monetize user inputs. Tern’s architecture was built specifically to counter that risk.

“One of the reasons they are excited about Tern AI is it never leaves this secure walled garden,” Shull said.

While the system hard-codes and stores an advisor’s distinct writing style and client preferences locally within Tern, it handles external queries with a strict data-wiping protocol. When the system calls an LLM to draft an email or build a proposal, that local context is provided to fulfill the request and is immediately deleted from the external servers once completed.

“None of that lives with the LLM,” Shull noted. “The LLM serves that request, and once it’s done, it’s deleted from the servers. We have a record on our end.”

Erasing the Data-Entry ‘Ceiling’

The push for this rollout comes directly from Tern’s acquisition of hospitality freelance marketplace Lucia one year ago. Itinerary-building tasks posted to Lucia, which connects freelancers with advisors, drew zero applicants 89% of the time, largely because freelancers found the low pay and high friction of copy-and-paste work unbearable.

By replacing that gap with an automated assistant, Tern is hoping to solve the problem for its users, and allow them to instead focus on being the “creative genius” behind the trip.

Because the tool is embedded and conncted to Tern’s data, it also avoids the “hallucinations” common in tools like ChatGPT. Instead of guessing departure dates or ship deployments for future sailings, Tern’s AI pulls directly from Tern’s verified internal databases, such as its cruise library.

“If you go to a Claude or a ChatGPT and ask what cruises are happening in 2027, it doesn’t have a database directly connected to the cruise lines, which is why you get inaccurate data,” Shull said. “We are combining the AI, which is a language processor, with a true system of record. That is where advisors and agents will see the biggest ROI.”

Elevating Automation to Personalization

The agentic AI features are live for all Tern advisors starting today, and Tern is hosting a webinar later today to introduce it to all of its users.

To support the intensive backend computing costs, Tern is introducing Tern Pro, featuring advanced pricing tiers structured around metered usage. While Shull admits that AI infrastructure costs can be a bit of a shock to a market accustomed to free tools, he views the investment as a clear financial win for scaling agencies looking to expand without expanding their payroll.

“If you are a scaling business, the question becomes: Do we hire an assistant, or do we hire an AI for cheaper? It’s a bit of a no-brainer,” Shull said.

Ultimately, Shull rejects the notion that artificial intelligence will replace the human element in travel.

“There are a lot of people in technology betting that there will be AI travel agents that will be the next big travel advisor killer. We think the opposite is true,” Shull said. “AI is imperfect; it does hallucinate. The winning recipe is a human selling and an AI taking most of the admin off their plate.”