Rajeev: Certain. I believe lately none of those conversations could 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 secret is approaching this based mostly on the client’s ache factors and enterprise wants after which we work backward to establish what kind of AI is finest appropriate or related to us. In Cathay, presently, we deal with three fundamental kinds of AI. One is after all conversational AI. Primarily, it’s a type of an inside and exterior chatbot. Our chatbot, we name it Vera, serves prospects instantly 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 far 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 throughout the pandemic and post-Covid period, there’s restricted assets 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 instantly enhances the worker expertise. And up to now in Cathay, we’ve a couple of 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 workforce or the information 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, when it comes to what amount and how much 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 number of exploration that’s being carried out on this area as properly. And a few examples I might relate is if you happen to ever occur to come back to Hong Kong, subsequent time on the airport, you might hear the general public announcement system and that’s additionally AI-powered just lately. 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 may very well be constant in our announcement.
Megan: Oh, unbelievable. I will must pay attention for it subsequent time I am at Hong Kong airport. And you’ve got talked about this subject a few occasions within the dialog. Look, after we’re speaking about cloud modernization, cybersecurity is usually a roadblock to agility, I suppose, 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 growth 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 important capabilities round my hand, I have to be aware of each points, proper? Sure, it is an fascinating one and it has modified over the time frame, and I totally perceive why cybersecurity practices must be inflexible as a result of there’s a number of compliance and it’s a extremely regulated operate, but when one thing goes improper, 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 may very well be perceived as a highway blocker to agility.
One of many key points that we’ve carried out in Cathay is we’ve been following DevOps for fairly a variety of years, and just lately, I believe within the final two years, we began implementing DevSecOps into our STLC [software testing life cycle]. And what it basically means is fairly than the core cybersecurity workforce being liable for most of the safety testing and people kinds 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 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 frame 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 deal with 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 type of a gatekeeper, however in a really mild and inbuilt processes. And this manner we will make sure that our cloud purposes are safe by design and by default they will ship them sooner and extra reliably to our prospects. And on this complete 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 points, now you’ve gotten a greater possession within the group relating to 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 at all times say that individuals 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.
