When Jason Birnbaum joined United Airlines in 2015 as vice president of operations and workforce technology, expectations for the technology team were surprisingly low.
“Employees and customers didn’t trust our tools,” said Birnbaum, who was promoted to senior vice president of digital technology in 2019 and most recently became chief information officer in July 2022. Masu. The first big issue we really tackled was trust. ”
The legacy of the company's three-year bankruptcy that ended in 2006 means much-needed technology investments are relegated to the back seat, and mergers like the Continental Airlines acquisition in 2010 have meant a hodgepodge of technology systems. increased complexity by creating . Much of the IT team's time was spent making sure the technology actually worked reliably, Birnbaum said.
One of his first moves was to give United Airlines employees smartphones and iPads, allowing them to get out from behind a computer screen and more directly in front of customers. In recent years, Birnbaum has been able to tackle more complex problems.
One important example is “turn”. This is an industry term for preparing a recently arrived plane for takeoff. As many as 30 different groups across various departments, including pilots, flight attendants, gate agents, and technicians, were in charge of “turns,” but these employees could not seamlessly talk to each other. A flight attendant sitting in the back seat of a plane watching overhead baggage fill up should call the flight attendant in the front, who would then tell the pilot and then ask the gate agent to check the bag. I have to tell you.
“By the time that happens, you can imagine it's going to be a little chaotic,” Birnbaum said. A new tool called EZ Chat was created to allow everyone to chat through the same application.
Much of United Airlines' technology investment goes into sharing steady updates on flight times, gate announcements, checked bag details, and other critical information that helps employees and passengers reach their final destinations. The emphasis is on Birnbaum wants alerts shared through the United app to be communicated in simple language and as little jargon as possible. “Airlines are a team sport,” Birnbaum says. “Everyone has to get on the plane.”
United Airlines recently launched a customer service AI chatbot that can conversationally answer questions such as “What is United Airlines' policy for unaccompanied minors?” Another tool called “Connection Saver” notifies pilots, passengers and gate agents of delays on connecting flights and uses algorithms to recommend whether the flight should be put on hold. An alert will be sent to other passengers letting them know that their flight may depart a few minutes late, but that any lost flight time will be made up. If you miss your connecting flight, United will automatically rebook travelers, but you can also explore other flight options in the app.
AI is also being used to help United's “storytellers” create push alerts that are sent to customers' mobile phones when there is a problem with a flight. Birnbaum says AI will help text him draft messages, allowing the storyteller to cover more flights. Still, he points out the importance of having “stakeholders” in place to verify the accuracy and quality of communications.
Pandemic lockdowns have brought the air travel industry to a near standstill, but the outlook is brighter for airlines like United Airlines. 4.7 billion people are expected to travel by air this year, a jump from 4.5 billion in 2019, before the pandemic. United Airlines has posted steady revenue growth and two annual profits as passenger travel recovers.
United Airlines is currently experimenting with generative AI through Amazon's Bedrock, leveraging the tech giant's large catalog of language models rather than building its own models. Amazon Web Services is also United Airlines' primary cloud provider. Although most of the airline's consumer technology is on the cloud, some older engineering systems are still being rolled back and migrated to the cloud.
“We have every technology ever invented,” Birnbaum says of the complex task of updating decades-old systems. “We’re taking our time.”
John Kell
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news packet
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AI has raised billions of dollars, but is facing a reality test. Investors have invested $330 billion into nearly 26,000 AI and machine learning startups over the past three years, but many of these companies face challenges with the gap between spending and revenue. Anthropic, which has raised more than $7 billion and spends about $2 billion a year, records only $150 million to $200 million in revenue. of new york times report. Inflection AI folded its original business and Stability AI laid off employees. Databricks CEO Ali Ali Ghodsi asks, “It doesn't matter how cool what you're doing. Is there business potential?”
Rubrik's IPO was strong. Now comes the difficult part. Last week, cybersecurity startup Rubrik had a pretty solid first day of trading, with shares up nearly 16% to close at $37 on the first day of trading. “Profitability is paramount,” co-founder and CEO Bipul Sinha said in an interview. Yahoo Finance. Rubrik reported a net loss of $354 million in its most recent fiscal year, with revenue growth hurt as it moved to a pure cloud-based platform called Rubrik Security Cloud, but increased subscription revenue We expect that to show accelerated growth over time. of wall street journal report.
adoption curve
A new research study by Rubrik finds that as organizations increase their reliance on the cloud, new security blind spots are emerging. Of the organizations that suffered a cyberattack last year, many were attacked across multiple areas in hybrid environments, with 67% of attacks impacting their SaaS data, while 66% occurred in the cloud. Rubrik also revealed that 51% of this happens on-premises. place.
The study is based on a Wakefield Research survey of more than 1,600 IT and security leaders, half of them CIOs and CISOs.
job radar
employment:
– Motion adopted, Employment agency in Lewisville, Texas Seeking Chief Technology Officer. Published salary range: $250,000 to $350,000/year.
– working day, A finance and human resources cloud enterprise company located in McLean, Virginia. Seeking CTO for SLED/Federal. Published salary range: $276,600 to $480,000 annually.
– corebridge financial, A financial services company in New York, New York. Seeking CIO for Retirement Services. Published salary range: $210,000 to $245,000/year.
Recruitment:
– Akello Therapeutics have appointed Scott Gangloff has been appointed CTO. Most recently, Mr. Gangloff served as Vice President of Global Biopharmaceutical Development at Incyte Corporation.
– Follett Higher Education Group appointed Mani Suri is the company's new CIO. He will assume the role on April 22 and serve as senior leader in coordinating IT functions supporting the retailer's stores on campus.
– trade stream named Stephan Hufnagl becomes new CTO In his most recent role at Microsoft, he was responsible for the data, analytics, and AI team, driving projects that leveraged the tech giant's cloud services.
– Percona have announced The company has appointed Liz Warner as its new CTO, responsible for the development and implementation of the company's open source database software solutions and services.
– newly formed T&Pm have named Eakin Kagler, former head of agency technology at Publicis Groupe, has been appointed CTO. This is the first hire since two AI-focused marketing agencies, The&Partnership and mSix&Partners, merged in March.
