United Airlines is streamlining some of its processes with the help of AI

United Airlines is already leveraging AI to generate delayed flight notifications, power its customer service chatbot, and summarize flight information so its operations teams can always be updated by getting quick overviews of what is happening at any given time. Moreover, the airline is also trying out generative text capabilities to assist pilots in writing their on-cabin briefings and announcements. There may be some self-interest here since pilot interaction is a key driver of customer satisfaction. Still, United is not stopping at text-based conversational and summarization capabilities. The airline also plans to launch a feature currently known as “Get Me Close”, which will address customers rerouting requests in case of flight delays. United CIO Jason Birnbaum is confident that handling passenger requests to be rerouted to the nearest airports is a great use case for AI.

These new actions follow a clearly-cut path that pre-dates the wildly successful ChatGPT and its related euphoria. According to Birnbaum, the airline already had a mature AI practice, mainly based on model management and tuning. In 2015, when Birnbaum started as SVP of Digital Technology, he was responsible for many ML-based projects, including ConnectionSaver, a machine learning-powered service that judiciously holds flights for fliers with tight connections. But for all the excitement, United is cautiously proceeding with the digital transformation. The airline has ruled out technical document summarization capabilities because of the heavy structure and regulations in place. It is also not deploying a unified platform that will replace every system on board. Even though United is bullish on AI, it does not want to disrupt its day-to-day operations or end up with self-inflicted wounds.