As well as being OpenAI CFO, Friar is a long-time member of the board of Walmart.

Before returning home to run Air New Zealand, Foran was in charge of the giant retailer’s US operation.

There have been several meetings between senior Air New Zealand and Open AI senior leaders over the past year “and they saw that Air New Zealand could well be the petri dish for innovation in the critical infrastructure and aviation game”, Ravishankar said.

The airline’s use of OpenAI’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) has run from the mainstream – summarising complicated documents – to creating the aforementioned virtual focus group.

“Our customer service teams have created customer personas by feeding them all the feedback and complaints we’ve got – to test service improvements before we introduce them to a focus group,” Ravishankar said.

Ideas could be “pre-tested” on and honed on the virtual personas, which were based on hundreds of thousands of pieces of customer comments, helping to fine-tune ideas from a much broader pool of perspectives, before putting them before a human focus group.

“AI allows you to do complex, integrated planning much more seamlessly,” Ravishankar said.

“We’re starting to look at how we use AI to optimise our loyalty tier benefits, for example, and how we can optimise turnaround to improve on-time performance management.”

What about customer-facing AI?

Air New Zealand was an early adopter of Soul Machines’ avatar technology, before the Kiwi firm flamed out, but switched from the homegrown solution to its inhouse-developed chatbot “Oscar”.

Is Oscar about to get an an AI makeover?

“As are a lot of organisations, we’re doing a ton of work on whether generative AI is ready for prime time; ready to directly interface with customers to provide an, if you will, chatbot on steroids. We’re doing a lot of testing, but we’re just not fully satisfied it’s there yet,” Ravishankar said.

“But it’s maturing at a rate of knots. I’m a technologist by trade, and I’ve never seen anything move as quickly.”

Behind the scenes, staff are using AI to help deliver more personalised service to customers, he said. All up, the airline is using 1500 CustomGPTs to introduce efficiencies to internal workflows.

CustomGPTs are set to specific tasks and can be ring-fenced to access a company’s own data – addressing the dangers of an AI hallucinating or breaching privacy or commercial confidentiality.

How do you market to an AI concierge?

OpenAI recently released a ChatGPT “agent” that can carry out autonomous tasks, such as booking travel (or “looking” at a photo of a meal you like on Instagram, then ordering the ingredients for you from an online supermarket).

The initial release was restricted to those on US$200 ($330) per month pro plans, but it’s being rolled out this month to those on cheaper Plus plans too.

So far, many early testers have found the ChatGPT agent slow and clumsy, in part because human approval is needed at various steps – including credit card purchases – so you can’t walk away from your device.

‘Uncharted territory’

But while the ChatGPT agent might be a while off for OpenAI’s free tier, pundits see “agentic AI” as the next big thing – and it’s already starting to figure in the airline’s thinking.

“We’re starting to wonder what the role of a brand is when … a customer’s own concierge [AI] agent is deciding which product to put in front of the customer,” Ravishankar said.

“That’s uncharted territory … if anyone tells us they know exactly how that’s going to play out, they’re making it up.

“But we’re paying close attention to it, and then we’re seeing multiple models emerge.

“It could be we provide an Air New Zealand concierge, or our concierge interacts with a customer’s own concierge. Or we just make our environment open to customers’ own agents, being able to interact with us.

“It’s too soon to say what pattern emerges. If I was a betting man, I’d say we’ll probably see multiple models.”

Direct collaboration

As part of the collaboration, Air New Zealand will gain early access to OpenAI technologies to develop and apply use cases, and equip its people across corporate roles with secure, enterprise-grade AI tools, Ravishankar said.

“By working directly with OpenAI, we not only access leading-edge technology but we also shape how it’s used in the real world.”

“Air New Zealand is taking meaningful steps to bring AI across key parts of its business using OpenAI’s technology. We have been particularly impressed with how quickly they have built over 1500 CustomGPTs to introduce efficiencies to internal workflows,” OpenAI international managing director Oliver Jay said.

“Their focus on innovation and responsibility shows how the aviation sector can adopt advanced tools in practical ways that deliver value for both employees and customers.”

POSTSCRIPT: Captain’s chair?

Foran resigned as CEO in May. He will depart the airline in October.

The Australian recently reported that Ravishankar has the inside running to replace him.

The Herald asked Ravishankar if he wanted to take the opportunity to rule himself in or out.

“That is definitely above my pay grade, and you probably want to speak to the board about that,” he replied.

There was no immediate response from the board. Boards typically don’t comment on potential candidates prior to an executive appointment.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.