Rajeev: Positive. I feel lately none of those conversations will 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 hot button is approaching this based mostly on the shopper’s ache factors and enterprise wants after which we work backward to establish what sort of AI is finest appropriate or related to us. In Cathay, at present, we give attention to three foremost varieties 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 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 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 in the course of 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, but it surely additionally straight enhances the worker expertise. And thus far in Cathay, we’ve got a few hundred bots in manufacturing serving varied 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 crew or the info science crew has developed about 70-plus ML fashions in Cathay that turned the group knowledge into insights or actionable gadgets. These fashions assist us to make a greater choice. For instance, what meals to be loaded into the plane and particular routes, when it comes to what amount and how much product gives 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 plenty of exploration that’s being performed on this area as properly. And a few examples I may relate is for those who 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 workers used to manually make these bulletins and now it has been moved away and has been moved into AI-powered voice know-how in order that we may very well be constant in our announcement.
Megan: Oh, implausible. I am going to should pay attention for it subsequent time I am at Hong Kong airport. And you’ve got talked about this matter a few instances within the dialog. Look, after we’re speaking about cloud modernization, cybersecurity generally is a roadblock to agility, I assume, if it is not managed successfully. So may you additionally inform us in a little bit 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 attention-grabbing one. I take care of cybersecurity in addition to the infrastructure providers. With each of those vital features round my hand, I must be conscious of each points, proper? Sure, it is an attention-grabbing one and it has modified over the time frame, and I totally perceive why cybersecurity practices must be inflexible as a result of there may be plenty of compliance and it’s a extremely regulated perform, but when one thing goes fallacious, as a CISO we’re held accountable for these faults. I can perceive why the crew is so inflexible of their practices. And I additionally perceive from a enterprise perspective it may very well be perceived as a street blocker to agility.
One of many key points that we’ve got performed in Cathay is we’ve got been following DevOps for fairly quite a lot of 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 crew being chargeable for most of the safety testing and people types of points, 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?
In fact, after we began off this journey, there was an enormous resistance on the safety crew itself as a result of they do not actually belief the builders making an attempt 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 handle all of the points of safety, like risk modeling, code scanning, and the vulnerability testing. However on the finish, the safety groups could be nonetheless validating and act as a form of a gatekeeper, however in a really gentle and inbuilt processes. And this manner we will be certain that our cloud purposes are safe by design and by default they will ship them quicker and extra reliably to our prospects. And on this total course of, proper?
Previously, safety has been all the time perceived as an accountability of the cybersecurity crew. And by enabling the builders of the safety points, now you have got a greater possession within the group on the subject of cybersecurity and it’s constructing a greater cybersecurity tradition throughout the group. And that, to me, is a key as a result of from a safety facet, we all the time 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.