Rajeev: Certain. I feel today none of those conversations may be full with out speaking about AI and gen AI. We began this early exploratory part early into the sport, particularly on this a part of the world. However for us, the bottom line is approaching this primarily based 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, at present, we deal with three principal varieties of AI. One is in fact conversational AI. Basically, it’s a type of an inner and exterior chatbot. Our chatbot, we name it Vera, serves clients straight and might 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 way more responsive by way of 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 throughout the pandemic and post-Covid period, there’s restricted assets obtainable, 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, however it additionally straight enhances the worker expertise. And up to now in Cathay, now we have a couple of hundred bots in manufacturing serving numerous enterprise models, 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 workforce or the info science workforce has developed about 70-plus ML fashions in Cathay that turned the group information 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, by way of what amount and how much product affords we promote to clients, and together with the fare loading and the pricing of our passenger in addition to a cargo bay area. There’s loads of exploration that’s being completed on this area as properly. And a few examples I might relate is in case you ever occur to return to Hong Kong, subsequent time on the airport, you may hear the general public announcement system and that’s additionally AI-powered not too long ago. Previously, our employees 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 might be constant in our announcement.
Megan: Oh, improbable. I am going to must hear for it subsequent time I am at Hong Kong airport. And you have talked about this matter a few occasions within the dialog. Look, once we’re speaking about cloud modernization, cybersecurity generally is a roadblock to agility, I assume, if it is not managed successfully. So might you additionally inform us in a bit extra element how Cathay Pacific has built-in safety into its digital transformation journey, significantly with the adoption of improvement safety operations practices that you’ve got talked about?
Rajeev: Yeah, that is an attention-grabbing one. I take care of cybersecurity in addition to the infrastructure providers. With each of those crucial capabilities round my hand, I should be aware of each features, proper? Sure, it is an attention-grabbing one and it has modified over the time period, and I totally perceive why cybersecurity practices must be inflexible as a result of there’s loads of compliance and it’s a extremely regulated perform, but when one thing goes unsuitable, as a CISO we’re held accountable for these faults. I can perceive why the workforce is so inflexible of their practices. And I additionally perceive from a enterprise perspective it might be perceived as a street blocker to agility.
One of many key features that now we have completed in Cathay is now we have been following DevOps for fairly quite a few years, and not too long ago, 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 workforce being liable for most of the safety testing and people kinds of features, 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 by way of the cybersecurity course of. Proper?
After all, once we began off this journey, there was an enormous resistance on the safety workforce 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 period with the introduction of assorted 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 handle all of the features of safety, like menace modeling, code scanning, and the vulnerability testing. However on the finish, the safety groups could be nonetheless validating and act as a type of a gatekeeper, however in a really mild and inbuilt processes. And this manner we are able to make sure that our cloud functions are safe by design and by default they will ship them quicker and extra reliably to our clients. And on this whole course of, proper?
Previously, safety has been at all times perceived as an accountability of the cybersecurity workforce. And by enabling the builders of the safety features, now you might have a greater possession within the group with regards 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 sometimes 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.
