Samik Ghatak on Unlocking AI Value in Travel and Hospitality

Jeff Kavanaugh:

I'm Jeff Kavanagh, head of the Infosys Knowledge Institute here at the Infosys Connect conference in Los Angeles. Glad to be here with Samik, who leads the Infosys Travel and Hospitality area. Good to see you.

Samik Ghatak:

Nice meeting you, Jeff.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

You bet. Well, given we've all traveled here, this is probably an appropriate topic. Unlocking value in AI for travel and hospitality. It's a crazy time for this industry. What's top of mind for your clients as they think about where they are with AI right now?

Samik Ghatak:

Well, the first thing is thank you for having me here. The first thing, obviously, is that the travel industry loves when people travel. So the fact that this event is happening and everybody's come here spending money on the travel industries like the airlines and the car rental companies.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Hotels.

Samik Ghatak:

Hotels, of course. So that's the first thing, is to make sure that people can connect, because ultimately travel is about making people connect with people, right?

Jeff Kavanaugh:

And you know what? I think COVID taught people a lesson that being in person and traveling, either to experience a vacation or traveling for business, it matters.

Samik Ghatak:

It absolutely matters. And we've seen that people, if you go back hundreds of years, have traveled to meet other people and make friends, make that personal connection. And now with the technology and with all the things that are available to us, people still want to travel, even though you can do everything online, so to speak, to see new experiences, to go out to places, to reach new destinations, new frontiers. So what the travel industry is trying to make sure is that travel doesn't come in the way of your personal aspirations, your fulfillment, your goals, whatever it may be. And so when you think about traveling, they want to make it as frictionless as possible. And technology is one big piece to make that happen. And they want to make sure that whether you shop online or you shop on Google or whatever, right, you always get the best treatment, you always get what you actually want.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Not adding more friction, actually removing it.

Samik Ghatak:

Yeah. So the idea is that for example, let's say you've booked a car rental, but you don't know which car you're going to get until you reach the exact point. So technology, and for that matter, AI, can actually help you determine that once you land at LAX, you are going to get a pick of these five cars that are available. And that visibility is something that.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Because you might need big suitcase.

Samik Ghatak:

Exactly

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Family. Disability access.

Samik Ghatak:

Yeah. And not only that, you can even prescribe some of those things ahead of time, and then a digital concierge might show up and say that, okay, you know what? This car is specifically fitted for you, and you can walk in out there and then drive it up and then that's it completely makes the experience frictionless for you. So that's the blend of where technology and sort of the AI comes into picture.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

That's on the experience side. Travel and hospitality also have a, I don't know, financial ceiling they can charge before they lose people. So keeping their costs under control despite fuel, despite inflation, how is AI helping with that?

Samik Ghatak:

If you look at historically, companies have tried to make travel economical to reach mass market. If you go back to the '50s and '60s, travel used to be only for the people who had money. But over time it has been democratized, and technology has helped that a lot. And even today, the travel companies are making sure that they're using technology very, very efficiently to keep the costs under control. And even with the escalating jet fuel prices and everything else that is going on, the efficiency that technology is delivering in everyday work, for example, in making sure that the flights are full, the fares are highly optimized, the cargo is most optimally delivered, the fact that temperature control inside the cabin is well maintained, the fact that when they're taxiing on the runway, only one engine is running, and what cruise altitude they should fly. So for every single thing to optimize and make sure that they are doing the right things, travel essentially, even in this hotel, for example, I was talking to the manager and they were telling me that of all the eight lift banks, only certain lift banks operate at particular hours, so then they can save on fuel and they will save on cost and generators and things like that. So there's a lot of optimization that we don't see that's happening all the time, and that's all being powered by technology, by data, by AI, and so on, so forth.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Back on the care part, one quick example, even from last week, I accidentally left a laptop in a rental vehicle, and of course, very nervous about that. Within a few hours, was able to contact the car rental agency, isolate it, and take care of it. And I started thinking, if you didn't have tech working like that, very manual, who knows if you even get it back. It's mailed back weeks later. And so the ability to quickly pinpoint, personalize it, and make sure that even though they're handling thousands of rentals, they could find that one. That was one good success story.

Samik Ghatak:

Yeah. And that's just one of the so many examples that are out there. If you see people traveling, especially on airlines, the number one concern that they have besides the flight being on time, is that they don't want to lose their bags when they reach their destination. And it is so much important to every single passenger. So the airlines are making sure that they use technology to pinpoint the exact bag if in case a bag does get missed in a tight connection or whatever. But they have made sure that you can actually track your bag globally anywhere it is and missed bag rates have come down dramatically.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Not to reinforce your point, but on the same trip last week, I had bags go, because of all the cancellations in two different airports, but was able to track them down the next day. So at least we know where it was.

Samik Ghatak:

That's true.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

So I felt better about that.

Samik Ghatak:

Yeah. I'm glad you were able to trace it, and they will get it. And that goes to the point that we are still a little bit away from where I would say the nirvana stage, where everything is perfect because we're never going to be perfect. There's always going to be weather phenomenon and things which are outside of control. And what travel is trying to do is making sure that with technology, with insights, with data, they're creating this, what we call something similar to what Infosys is talking about, like a Topaz framework, is an orchestration layer which kind of operates the underlying subsystems in the best efficient way, so that the travel and that experience is delivered correctly.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

What's going to need to, because now I think these things work when you have a savvy traveler or a savvy person who kind of knows the questions to ask and what to do. What about the person who might not know these things? So how can you make it more intuitive? And I think AI might be able to help there.

Samik Ghatak:

One good example is that when people are traveling who do not know English, for example, and they are.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Language.

Samik Ghatak:

Yeah language, exactly. And then, people coming into airports, they want to go through customs, pick up bags or drop off bags and things like that. So every single message is being communicated on their mobile app with proper guidance in their language, and very specifically saying that, okay, your next connecting flight is, so many meters away, and then, go there.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

And contextualization as well. It's a great point because, for example, LAX here, the Uber or the shared area, it's very different and every airport's different. Some, they put you in a little cattle car area, or some, it's very intuitive. But you need to make it so that isn't a big source of stress.

Samik Ghatak:

Yeah. And that's an interesting point because over here you see how widespread the travel industry is compared to others, because you're talking about three different service providers. You've got the airline, which is taking you all the way to the gate. Then you've got the airport, which actually is where you travel through. Then you've got the transportation company, which is actually taking you from the bus to the Uber stand. And then you've got Uber itself.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

And then you've got the driver,

Samik Ghatak:

Of course.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

in a separate car. So you've got all these you're trying to coordinate.

Samik Ghatak:

So you've got all these you're trying to coordinate. And the thing that I think we will start seeing in very near future is that all these three or four ecosystem players kind of share their data, share their technology, and make it easy for the traveler to actually get from the point they need to come from to the point they need to go to in all very seamless way. Because you don't have to switch between the airport app and the airline app and the Uber app because it's all going to come together. We've already seen a fair degree of integration between, let's say, the Uber and the airline, but we're also going to now see all of these three pieces come together so that you kind of get through this process in a very seamless way.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

That's all the rosy side. What about the dark underbelly? Security, cybersecurity, privacy.

Samik Ghatak:

Yeah. And that's always keeping the CIOs and the CISOs up for all these travel companies. And we see that happen time to time. Back 10 years ago, Starwood hotels, back then, before they got acquired by Marriott, had a major breach. A lot of loyalty data got out. Since then, of course, things have improved, and we're going to see continuously things being checked. And now with AI and new Mythos coming out, I think there's a lot of focus to make sure that the internal systems as well as the perimeter is well-guarded so that travel data, and a lot of people have a lot of personal data about where they travel, who they travel with and things like that. They want to keep it guarded. And the last thing that any travel company wants to do is have a breach. So there is always that sensitivity out there. But good thing is that with technology and with AI, a lot of things that were previously not possible is now possible, which is edge-based perimeter security, things like that.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

What about the people? It's a very people-oriented business, and yet in some industries, It's about, the concern is about AI taking over people's jobs. Where do you see that playing out?

Samik Ghatak:

Yeah. So there is always going to be this dynamic between AI, or technology, and people. And in some areas, like for example, contact center, I do see technology actually helping and assisting contact center quite a bit. So you don't have to spend, during a disruption, on phone, even though you're a gold, platinum, whatever, for hours talking to someone. And help will be immediate available. In most cases, it is proactive, so it actually will send you the information most of the cases. But in other cases, for example, where, let's say there is a real disruption and your bag is in a pile of 10,000 bags in Heathrow, you will, AI is not to the point where there is a robot which goes and gets your bag and things like that. There will be some of those elements still out there. But the good thing is that we are moving in the right direction. So for example, in this particular Hilton that we are here, you could have checked a room and picked a room ahead of time, even before you showed up at the registration booth. I mean, those are things that are out there which is actually making a little bit of, I guess, driving a little bit of customer satisfaction. But we are still far away from where the perfect world is. But we're getting there. I think now technology is allowing people to get there. I think it all comes down to the underlying data, the technology, and the ability to make sure that the data is such that it can be actually worked with using the technology that is available today. Because travel industry is a vast amount of data. I mean, that is a given. But how do you make use of all of that to drive the efficient outcome? That's where the real use is.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Like many things in life, a good foundation allows you to do all the fun stuff.

Samik Ghatak:

That is true. Yeah. And it's no different.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

I know you've got to finish the conference. Thank you so much for your time.

Samik Ghatak:

Thanks for talking to me.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Thank you.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

I'm Jeff Kavanaugh. Until next time, keep learning and keep sharing.