Agency Payout Rules That Actually Fit How You Work

Episode Overview:

Brad Turner (Head of Design) and Molly Johnson (Head of Product) host this week's episode, joined by Spencer, one of Tern's lead engineers on AI. With David traveling back from a team offsite in Singapore, the three dig into a packed week of shipping: agency supplier payout rules, a wave of AI chat improvements, and a long list of quality-of-life fixes. Spencer pulls back the curtain on how Tern builds and evaluates its AI features, including how advisors can get more out of chat today. Q3 planning is underway, and there's plenty on the horizon for both advisors and agencies.

Episode Topics:

(00:00) Week in Review
Brad, Molly, and Spencer share what the first post-webinar week looked like, from shipping payout rules to thinking through what comes next for chat.

(06:52) Agency Supplier Payout Rules
Molly walks through the new ability to set commission payout eligibility rules by supplier type, so agency owners spend less time manually adjusting dates and advisors get cleaner expected commission reports.

(11:13) AI Chat: Publish Trips and Reliability Fixes
Spencer covers two chat updates shipped this week: the ability to publish trips directly from chat, and under-the-hood reliability improvements so chats handle deploys and errors more gracefully.

(17:30) Quality-of-Life Updates
Brad and Molly run through a full list of fixes and polish, including AI reconciliation line item deletion, year-over-year KPI comparisons, confirmation number visibility for unauthenticated clients, and a mobile chat submit button fix.

(25:00) How to Get More Out of AI Chat
Spencer breaks down how Tern optimizes chat behind the scenes and shares practical tips: use the light model for simple tasks, open chat from the trip you're working on, and start new chats more often instead of letting one run forever.

(39:34) What's Coming Next
Spencer is focused on search infrastructure improvements starting with tasks. Molly is deep in Q3 planning, with new advisor and agency features on the way. Brad is preparing for the Tern Pro upgrade rollout and a new booking import integration.

Show Highlights:

• Agency owners can now set commission payout rules by supplier type, with the ability to override per specific supplier
• Expected commission dates now calculate automatically, so advisors no longer have to guess or do manual math
• Trips can now be published directly from AI chat
• Starting fresh chats per task, instead of one long-running chat, extends usage and improves output quality
• Opening chat from inside a trip eliminates the need for the AI to search, saving tokens and time
• Year-over-year KPI comparisons now available, replacing month-over-month which wasn't useful for travel's seasonal patterns
• Library search is on the way: Spencer recommends naming your photos well now so the AI can find them later