Rajeev: Positive. I feel as of late none of those conversations might be full with out speaking about AI and gen AI. We began this early exploratory part early into the sport, particularly on this a part of the world. However for us, the secret’s approaching this based mostly 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, presently, we concentrate on three fundamental kinds of AI. One is after all conversational AI. Primarily, it’s a type of an inner and exterior chatbot. Our chatbot, we name it Vera, serves clients 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 by way of 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, but it surely additionally straight enhances the worker expertise. And to date in Cathay, we have now 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 staff or the information science staff 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 determination. For instance, what meals to be loaded into the plane and particular routes, by way of what amount and how much product provides 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 whole lot of exploration that’s being completed on this area as nicely. And a few examples I may relate is when you ever occur to come back to Hong Kong, subsequent time on the airport, you could possibly hear the general public announcement system and that’s additionally AI-powered just lately. 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 might be constant in our announcement.
Megan: Oh, unbelievable. I will need to hear for it subsequent time I am at Hong Kong airport. And you’ve got talked about this matter a few occasions within the dialog. Look, once we’re speaking about cloud modernization, cybersecurity generally is a roadblock to agility, I assume, if it isn’t managed successfully. So may you additionally inform us in a bit of extra element how Cathay Pacific has built-in safety into its digital transformation journey, notably with the adoption of growth safety operations practices that you’ve got talked about?
Rajeev: Yeah, that is an fascinating one. I take care of cybersecurity in addition to the infrastructure companies. With each of those important capabilities round my hand, I have to be aware of each elements, proper? Sure, it is an fascinating one and it has modified over the time frame, and I absolutely perceive why cybersecurity practices must be inflexible as a result of there’s a whole lot of compliance and it’s a extremely regulated operate, but when one thing goes fallacious, as a CISO we’re held accountable for these faults. I can perceive why the staff 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 a lot of 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 relatively than the core cybersecurity staff being liable for lots of the safety testing and people kinds 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. And so they’re additionally enabled by way of the cybersecurity course of. Proper?
After all, once we began off this journey, there was an enormous resistance on the safety staff 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 care for all of the elements of safety, like risk modeling, code scanning, and the vulnerability testing. However on the finish, the safety groups can be nonetheless validating and act as a form of a gatekeeper, however in a really gentle and inbuilt processes. And this manner we are able to be certain that our cloud purposes are safe by design and by default they’ll ship them quicker and extra reliably to our clients. And on this complete course of, proper?
Previously, safety has been all the time perceived as an accountability of the cybersecurity staff. And by enabling the builders of the safety elements, now you’ve a greater possession within the group on the subject of 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 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 in a position to enhance that maturity within the group.
Rajeev: Positive. I feel as of late none of those conversations might be full with out speaking about AI and gen AI. We began this early exploratory part early into the sport, particularly on this a part of the world. However for us, the secret’s approaching this based mostly 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, presently, we concentrate on three fundamental kinds of AI. One is after all conversational AI. Primarily, it’s a type of an inner and exterior chatbot. Our chatbot, we name it Vera, serves clients 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 by way of 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, but it surely additionally straight enhances the worker expertise. And to date in Cathay, we have now 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 staff or the information science staff 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 determination. For instance, what meals to be loaded into the plane and particular routes, by way of what amount and how much product provides 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 whole lot of exploration that’s being completed on this area as nicely. And a few examples I may relate is when you ever occur to come back to Hong Kong, subsequent time on the airport, you could possibly hear the general public announcement system and that’s additionally AI-powered just lately. 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 might be constant in our announcement.
Megan: Oh, unbelievable. I will need to hear for it subsequent time I am at Hong Kong airport. And you’ve got talked about this matter a few occasions within the dialog. Look, once we’re speaking about cloud modernization, cybersecurity generally is a roadblock to agility, I assume, if it isn’t managed successfully. So may you additionally inform us in a bit of extra element how Cathay Pacific has built-in safety into its digital transformation journey, notably with the adoption of growth safety operations practices that you’ve got talked about?
Rajeev: Yeah, that is an fascinating one. I take care of cybersecurity in addition to the infrastructure companies. With each of those important capabilities round my hand, I have to be aware of each elements, proper? Sure, it is an fascinating one and it has modified over the time frame, and I absolutely perceive why cybersecurity practices must be inflexible as a result of there’s a whole lot of compliance and it’s a extremely regulated operate, but when one thing goes fallacious, as a CISO we’re held accountable for these faults. I can perceive why the staff 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 a lot of 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 relatively than the core cybersecurity staff being liable for lots of the safety testing and people kinds 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. And so they’re additionally enabled by way of the cybersecurity course of. Proper?
After all, once we began off this journey, there was an enormous resistance on the safety staff 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 care for all of the elements of safety, like risk modeling, code scanning, and the vulnerability testing. However on the finish, the safety groups can be nonetheless validating and act as a form of a gatekeeper, however in a really gentle and inbuilt processes. And this manner we are able to be certain that our cloud purposes are safe by design and by default they’ll ship them quicker and extra reliably to our clients. And on this complete course of, proper?
Previously, safety has been all the time perceived as an accountability of the cybersecurity staff. And by enabling the builders of the safety elements, now you’ve a greater possession within the group on the subject of 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 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 in a position to enhance that maturity within the group.
