Rajeev: Certain. I feel as of late none of those conversations may be full with out speaking about AI and gen AI. We began this early exploratory section early into the sport, particularly on this a part of the world. However for us, the bottom line is approaching this based mostly on the shopper’s ache factors and enterprise wants after which we work backward to determine what kind of AI is greatest appropriate or related to us. In Cathay, presently, we concentrate on three essential sorts of AI. One is after all conversational AI. Basically, it’s a type of an inside and exterior chatbot. Our chatbot, we name it Vera, serves prospects straight and may deal with about 50% of the inquiries efficiently. And nearly two weeks again, we upgraded the LLM with a brand new mannequin, the chatbot with a brand new mannequin, which is ready to be extra environment friendly and rather more responsive when it comes to the human work. In order that’s one a part of the AI that we closely invested on.
Second is RPA, or robotic course of automation, particularly what you are seeing is through the pandemic and post-Covid period, there may be restricted sources out there, particularly in Hong Kong and throughout our provide chain. So RPA or the robotic processes helps to automate mundane repetitive duties, which does not solely fill the useful resource hole, nevertheless it additionally straight enhances the worker expertise. And to date in Cathay, we have now a few hundred bots in manufacturing serving varied enterprise items, serving roughly 30,000 hours yearly of human exercise. So that is the second half.
The third one is round ML and it is the gen AI. So like our digital staff or the information science staff has developed about 70-plus ML fashions in Cathay that turned the group knowledge into insights or actionable objects. These fashions assist us to make a greater determination. For instance, what meals to be loaded into the plane and particular routes, when it comes to what amount and what sort of product presents we promote to prospects, and together with the fare loading and the pricing of our passenger in addition to a cargo bay area. There may be a variety of exploration that’s being finished on this area as effectively. And a few examples I might relate is in case you ever occur to come back to Hong Kong, subsequent time on the airport, you possibly can hear the general public announcement system and that’s additionally AI-powered just lately. Previously, our workers used to manually make these bulletins and now it has been moved away and has been moved into AI-powered voice expertise in order that we may very well be constant in our announcement.
Megan: Oh, incredible. I will must hear for it subsequent time I am at Hong Kong airport. And you have talked about this subject a few occasions within the dialog. Look, once we’re speaking about cloud modernization, cybersecurity could be a roadblock to agility, I suppose, if it is not managed successfully. So might you additionally inform us in slightly extra element how Cathay Pacific has built-in safety into its digital transformation journey, notably with the adoption of improvement safety operations practices that you have talked about?
Rajeev: Yeah, that is an fascinating one. I take care of cybersecurity in addition to the infrastructure providers. With each of those essential capabilities round my hand, I must be aware of each elements, proper? Sure, it is an fascinating one and it has modified over the time frame, and I absolutely perceive why cybersecurity practices must be inflexible as a result of there may be a variety of compliance and it’s a extremely regulated operate, but when one thing goes incorrect, as a CISO we’re held accountable for these faults. I can perceive why the staff is so inflexible of their practices. And I additionally perceive from a enterprise perspective it may very well be perceived as a highway blocker to agility.
One of many key elements that we have now finished in Cathay is we have now been following DevOps for fairly quite a lot of years, and just lately, I feel within the final two years, we began implementing DevSecOps into our STLC [software testing life cycle]. And what it basically means is slightly than the core cybersecurity staff being answerable for most of the safety testing and people kinds of elements, we need to shift left a few of these capabilities into the builders in order that the individuals who develop the code now are held accountable for the testing and the standard of the output. And so they’re additionally enabled when it comes to the cybersecurity course of. Proper?
After all, once we began off this journey, there was an enormous resistance on the safety staff itself as a result of they do not actually belief the builders attempting to do the testing or the testing outputs. However over a time frame with the introduction of varied instruments and automation that’s put in place, that is now getting right into a matured stage whereby it’s now enabling the upfront groups to care for all of the elements of safety, like risk modeling, code scanning, and the vulnerability testing. However on the finish, the safety groups can be nonetheless validating and act as a kind of a gatekeeper, however in a really mild and inbuilt processes. And this manner we will be sure that our cloud functions are safe by design and by default they’ll ship them sooner and extra reliably to our prospects. And on this total course of, proper?
Previously, safety has been at all times perceived as an accountability of the cybersecurity staff. And by enabling the builders of the safety elements, now you will have a greater possession within the group relating to cybersecurity and it’s constructing a greater cybersecurity tradition inside the group. And that, to me, is a key as a result of from a safety side, we at all times say that persons are your first line of protection and infrequently they’re additionally the final line of protection. I am glad that by these processes we’re capable of enhance that maturity within the group.
