United Airlines CEO: ‘We're probably doing more AI than anyone'
United Airlines is 'probably doing more AI than anyone' as investments in the technology continue, CEO Scott Kirby said during an investor conference last week. A lot of the airline's efforts are still in the experimental phase, he said.
The company is using AI to share flight details with customers and to update labor contracts. In the latter use case, Kirby said AI is more accurate and faster than humans. Baggage recovery is another AI pursuit.
Not every use case is successful. For predictive maintenance, AI 'hasn't worked as well as we thought,' Kirby said. Despite the challenges, the company is still experimenting in this area and has had a few isolated cases that were fruitful.
Enterprises are full of potential AI pursuits, spanning departments and roles. Some use cases are more impactful than others.
Most businesses struggle to identify which ideas to launch at scale. Around 7 in 10 decision-makers have more potential AI opportunities than they can possibly fund, according to a Snowflake report. Early AI adopters have found it challenging to lean on metrics like cost and business impact when deciding what project to prioritize.
CIOs who can help organizations avoid dead-end AI use cases are an asset, according to analysts. The alternative could bring consequences. Decision-makers worry about job security and their company's market position if they advocate for the wrong use case, Snowflake found.
Technology leaders can't make decisions about AI adoption in a silo. Sorin Hilgen, chief digital officer and in-country CIO at convenience retailer EG America, told CIO Dive that deciding which use cases to tackle is a collaborative effort among business leaders, who take into account timelines and resource availability.
Goldman Sachs takes a similar approach.
'We started with an enormous number of [AI] use cases, and we whittled it down to the use cases that we want to spend money on,' COO and President John Waldron said during an investor conference last week.
Enterprises can't chase every lead. The share of companies abandoning most of their AI initiatives bumped up to 42% this year, compared to 17% last year, according to analysis from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Analysts have urged CIOs not to interpret every failed AI experiment as a negative signal, however. Promoting a culture of experimentation and encouraging trial-and-error can lead to better results and more engagement, experts say.
Recommended Reading
Meta unleashes AI free-for-all with release of Llama 2
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Capgemini to acquire IT services provider WNS for $3.3bn
French technology company Capgemini has signed a definitive agreement to acquire IT services provider WNS in a deal valued at $3.3bn (€2.8bn). The transaction will see Capgemini paying $76.5 per WNS share, representing a premium of 28% to the last 90-day average share price. The strategic acquisition aims to bolster Capgemini's leadership in AI-powered intelligent operations. Publicly listed-WNS offers business transformation services, leveraging industry knowledge, business process management, technology, analytics, and AI expertise to deliver market differentiation. It operates across eight industries, deploying automated platforms to enhance business outcomes, and maintains long-term contracts with recurring revenue streams. WNS caters to clients such as United Airlines, Aviva, M&T Bank, Centrica, and McCain Foods. According to Capgemini, the acquisition will position it as a leader in digital business process services (BPS), blending horizontal and vertical process expertise with a global presence. Capgemini CEO Aiman Ezzat said: 'WNS brings to the Group its high growth, margin accretive and resilient Digital Business Process Services, which is the springboard to Intelligent Operations, while further increasing our exposure to the US market. Immediate cross-selling opportunities will be unlocked through the integration of our complementary offerings and clients.' WNS CEO Keshav Murugesh said: 'By combining our deep domain and process expertise with Capgemini's global reach, cutting-edge Gen AI and Agentic AI capabilities, a robust partner ecosystem, and advanced technology platforms, we are creating a powerful proposition that accelerates enterprise reinvention. 'WNS' complementary portfolio of horizontal and industry-specific solutions will significantly enhance Capgemini's rapidly growing Business Services footprint, enabling next-generation, data-driven operations across sectors.' With combined revenues of €1.9bn in 2024 in digital BPS, Capgemini aims to strengthen its ability to support clients in their business and technology transformation journeys. The merger of Capgemini and WNS's offerings and client bases is expected to unlock cross-selling opportunities and lay the foundation for seizing the intelligent operations market opportunity, the French group said. Intelligent operations provide a consulting-led approach to transform and operate business processes leveraging AI technologies. It focuses on efficiency, speed, and agility through process hyper-automation, improving business outcomes by integrating data, AI, and digital solutions, the technology vendor explained. The merger is anticipated to benefit from Capgemini's investments in AI through its partnerships with companies such as Microsoft, Google, AWS, Mistral AI, and NVIDIA. The transaction has received unanimous approval from both companies' boards of directors and is subject to approval by the Royal Court of Jersey, WNS shareholders, and customary regulatory approvals. The closing of the transaction is anticipated by the end of 2025. In May 2025, Capgemini, Mistral AI and SAP teamed up to offer AI models for the regulated industries such as financial services, the public sector, aerospace and defence, as well as energy and utilities. "Capgemini to acquire IT services provider WNS for $3.3bn " was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
38 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Tech companies are paying up to $200,000 in premiums for AI experience, report finds
The AI talent bidding war is heating up, and the data scientists and software engineers behind the tech are benefiting from being caught in the middle. Many tech companies are "strategically overpaying" recruits with AI experience, shelling out premiums of up to $200,000 for some roles with machine learning skills, J. Thelander Consulting, a compensation data and consulting firm for the private capital market, found in a recent report. The report, compiled from a compensation analysis of roles across 153 companies, showed that data scientists and analysts with machine learning skills tend to receive a higher premium than software engineers with the same skills. However, the consulting firm also tracked a rise in bonuses for lower-level software engineers and analysts. The payouts are a big bet, especially among startups. About half of the surveyed companies paying premiums for employees with AI skills had no revenue in the past year, and a majority (71%) had no profit. Smaller firms need to stand out and be competitive among Big Tech giants — a likely driver behind the pricey recruitment tactic, a spokesperson for the consulting firm told Business Insider. But while the J. Thelander Consulting report focused on smaller firms, some Big Tech companies have also recently made headlines for their sky-high recruitment incentives. Meta was in the spotlight last month after Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said the social media giant had tried to poach his best employees with $100 million signing bonuses. While Business Insider previously reported that Altman later quipped that none of his "best people" had been enticed by the deal, Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, said in an interview with CNBC that Altman "neglected to mention that he's countering those offers."
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
AI is shaking up Hollywood. Here are the startups and investors jumping into the fray.
Hollywood giants are pushing back on AI's encroachment. Disney and Universal recently sued Midjourney, accusing it of using tech to rip off their famous characters. But inside entertainment companies, it's a whole different story. The biggest studios and filmmakers are using AI technology in various ways — and people in Hollywood are taking note. The AI on the Lot conference in May has doubled its attendance to 1,200 over three years, while AI editing company Runway attracted some 1,000 people to its third film festival. The tantalizing promise of AI is that it could solve big problems in the entertainment business, like content discovery and high production costs. "No matter how you feel about AI tools in the media and entertainment business, they're here to stay," said Peter Csathy, who advises media companies. Investors are climbing on board companies like Ecco, an AI startup that helps people find titles across multiple streamers using queries like "find me all the shows about F1." It has raised $7 million from Ben Silverman, Shaquille O'Neal, and others. One such investor is Ishan Sinha, a consumer partner at Point72 Ventures. He said the hype around AI-generated video hasn't translated into consumer interest. He sees the most potential in companies that use AI to promote distribution through personalization, translation, and IP ownership. "We believe the winning consumer businesses aggregate eyeballs — they have some type of a hook, whether it's content aggregation, playlists, proprietary IP, etc., that acquires and retains users," he said. Point72 Ventures' investments include GlobalComix, which uses AI to bring recommendations and language translation to comic book and manga readers that they couldn't otherwise find, and Cheehoo, which is working with studios to simplify animation. The firm also invested in Chronicle Studios, which aims to help animators grow their audiences and monetize their projects beyond YouTube. Here are some AI companies transforming different areas of Hollywood, and the pitch decks some of them used to raise funding. Faster, cheaper animation AI may still be a long way from making full-length movies, but it's quickly making inroads in animation. Toonstar, a startup behind "StEvEn & Parker," uses AI for tasks ranging from developing storylines to creating images and says it can make episodes at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods. Chronicle Studios is a startup cofounded by Chris deFaria, a former animation president at Warner Bros. and Comcast's DreamWorks, that's using AI to help creators level up, with a focus on animators. Others chasing the animation or independent creator opportunity are Further Adventures, a new studio that's investing in digital creators and independent filmmakers; Invisible Universe, an animation studio backed by Seven Seven Six; and Promise, an AI studio backed by Peter Chernin's North Road, Andreessen Horowitz, and Google. "AI can't really make stories that are enduring," deFaria told BI. "The biggest pain point is getting an audience." AI is transforming special effects Other companies, such as Runway, which has raised $545 million from General Atlantic and others, and Connect Ventures-backed Deep Voodoo, are using AI to provide tools for de-aging and other special effects work. Some have entered the rollup stage. Metaphysic, which was known for de-aging Tom Hanks and Robin Wright for the Robert Zemeckis film "Here," was acquired in February by DNEG Group's AI company Brahma. Papercup's voice-cloning IP was acquired in June by RWS, a content solutions company, while its team was acquired by Scale AI. AI is also being applied to speed the dubbing process, recreate the voices of bygone actors, and restore old films and TV series. With streamers going global, there's a big demand to translate titles for new markets, and new approaches to AI promise to eliminate awkward dubbing of the past. Runway made news this past year for deals with Lionsgate to train an AI model on its library and with AMC Networks, which will use its tools to generate promotional material for its shows. One player, Deepdub, which uses AI to dub movies and shows, just extended its tech to real-time dubbing of live sports commentary, esports shoutcasting, and breaking news coverage. "For the first time, broadcasters can deliver real-time, multilingual dubbing that captures not just words, but the energy, urgency, and authenticity of live content," said Ofir Krakowski, the company's CEO. Startups are tackling different phases of production A third area where AI startups have been active in Hollywood is in the content creation process more broadly. This can involve everything from AI in the script reading phase to scouring video libraries to generate new ideas for titles based on what's performed well in the past. One, Paris-based Moments Lab, recently raised a $24 million round from backers including Oxx and Orange Ventures to expand its AI tools that are used by Warner Bros. Discovery, Hearst, and others. Moments can make clips for social media seven times faster than the conventional approach, cofounder Phil Petitpont recently told BI, citing internal research. He said media companies would be able to use AI to help make full-length documentaries based on their video libraries in several months, while predictive modeling tools that can suggest audience-boosting changes are a year away. "We're not very far from that because audience data is very easily available on YouTube," he said. Read more:
