Rajeev: Certain. I feel 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 primarily based on the client’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 the moment, we give attention to three foremost varieties of AI. One is in fact conversational AI. Primarily, it’s a type of an inner and exterior chatbot. Our chatbot, we name it Vera, serves clients 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 in the course of the pandemic and post-Covid period, there’s restricted assets accessible, 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 thus far in Cathay, we have now a few 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 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 choice. 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 clients, 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 completed on this area as nicely. And a few examples I may relate is for those who ever occur to return to Hong Kong, subsequent time on the airport, you possibly can hear the general public announcement system and that’s additionally AI-powered just lately. Up to now, our workers 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, incredible. I am going to need to hear for it subsequent time I am at Hong Kong airport. And you have talked about this subject a few instances within the dialog. Look, once we’re speaking about cloud modernization, cybersecurity could be a roadblock to agility, I suppose, if it is not managed successfully. So may you additionally inform us in just a little 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 features round my hand, I must be conscious of each elements, proper? Sure, it is an attention-grabbing one and it has modified over the time period, and I absolutely perceive why cybersecurity practices must be inflexible as a result of there’s a number of compliance and it’s a extremely regulated perform, but when one thing goes flawed, 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 elements that we have now completed in Cathay is we have now been following DevOps for fairly various years, and just lately, I feel within the final two years, we began implementing DevSecOps into our STLC [software testing life cycle]. And what it primarily means is reasonably than the core cybersecurity workforce being chargeable for lots of the safety testing and people types of elements, 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. They usually’re additionally enabled when it comes to 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 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 elements of safety, like menace modeling, code scanning, and the vulnerability testing. However on the finish, the safety groups can be nonetheless validating and act as a kind of a gatekeeper, however in a really mild and inbuilt processes. And this manner we are able to be certain 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 complete course of, proper?
Up to now, safety has been at all times perceived as an accountability of the cybersecurity workforce. And by enabling the builders of the safety elements, now you’ve gotten 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 individuals 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 in a position to enhance that maturity within the group.
