Kenneth Chenault led American Express for 17 years, and stepped away from the company in 2018 to become chairman and managing director of venture capital company General Catalyst. That was more than three years after Amex spun out American Express Global Business Travel into a private joint venture with Certares.
Nearly a decade later, General Catalyst is backing private equity firm Long Lake in its pending acquisition of Amex GBT for $6.3 billion. Many investors decided not to make bids for Amex GBT out of fear that AI would take the company down.
Along comes Long Lake, however, which has acquired 30 companies in the last three years, and specializes in integrating its proprietary AI platform, Nexus AI, into the acquired companies.
Chenault believes Nexus AI can super-charge Amex GBT’s growth rather than AI being a lead weight around its expansion. “A lot of people talk about what they’re doing with AI. What really is compelling about Long Lake is they have been able to really integrate AI and transform the business, and they’re AI natives. That’s what’s important,” Chenault said last week at Skift Global Forum in New York.
The Amex GBT-Long Lake deal hasn’t closed yet. But once it does, observers will be looking a few quarters thereafter to see whether AI at Amex GBT can be a game-changer or a massive headwind.
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