Delta Just Announced Its Plan to Use AI to Solve the Worst Thing About Traveling

On Tuesday at CES, Delta Air Lines kicked off its 100th birthday year with a keynote at Sphere. I guess if you have some stuff you want to announce, packing a few thousand people into a place like Sphere is a good way to do that. Add in some special guests like Viola Davis, Tom Brady, a motorcycle Uber driver, and lots of digital fireworks, and you have a party. The highlights of the party were a series of announcements the company rolled out, including a new partnership with Uber—replacing Lyft as the airline’s official rideshare partner—as well as a partnership with YouTube that will allow SkyMiles members to watch YouTube Premium for free when signed in to Delta’s in-flight entertainment system. Delta also said it planned to complete its rollout of free Wi-Fi across its global fleet by the end of this year. One of the more interesting announcements was what the company called Delta Concierge, an AI-powered personal assistant within the Fly Delta app. “Delta Concierge will serve as a thread across your experience,” said Ed Bastian, Delta’s CEO. The idea is that it will “serve as an AI-powered personal assistant that combines the context of who our customers are and how they like to travel, with the deep knowledge and insights we’ve built as the world’s most reliable airline.” Initially, Delta Concierge will offer travelers suggestions based on their preferences and their travel plans. It will also allow for natural language text and voice input, making it easier to interact with than finding your way through a selection of menus. “Delta Concierge will offer features like natural language text and voice input and travel updates such as passport expiration alerts,” the company said. “Future updates will include options such as flight changes.” That last part is where things really get interesting. By far, the worst thing about travel is uncertainty. Air travel, especially, is full of uncertainty. There are literally millions of moving parts that all have to keep moving in order for you to get where you’re going. Sometimes, one of those moving parts breaks. Sometimes, the weather doesn’t cooperate, or crew members get sick. Sometimes, a software update grounds an entire airline for a few days. When that happens, the ability to simply ask the app to “Find me alternative flights to my destination,” and have it understand all of what that means would be a game-changer. But, even if everything goes the way it’s supposed to, for a lot of people, there is still a lot of uncertainty—especially if you don’t fly frequently. Having the app proactively let you know how to get to your gate, which security line to use, or the fastest way to get from the airport to your destination is a big deal. I don’t know how much of it is only possible because of AI, but if it works, I also don’t care. In the example shared in the keynote, Delta Concierge lets a traveler know that traffic is especially bad and suggests they take a Joby air taxi. Of course, you can’t actually do that yet. To be fair, I’m sure Delta could send you that notification when Delta Concierge rolls out, but Joby hasn’t received final regulatory approval. And when it does, you can bet that Delta will get a cut. Joby and Delta have a partnership to bring the air taxi to New York City and Los Angeles. Delta isn’t commenting on what LLM it is using, and—as for privacy—it says that customers are not automatically opted into the Delta Concierge experience. Additionally, it does say that “customer data will be safeguarded and protected according to our Privacy Policy, industry standards, and best practice.” Delta says it will begin launching in a “phased approach” this year, but it is yet to be seen what all of this really looks like when it arrives on your devices. A lot of companies have made big promises about how AI is going to change all sorts of products and experiences, and the vast majority of them are so early-stage that it’s not clear if they will ever materialize. On the other hand, Delta has a pretty good recent track record of keeping these types of promises. Two years ago, the company announced it was bringing fast, free Wi-Fi to all of its planes. During the keynote, Bastian said it expects to complete that by the end of this year. In fact, he stated publicly that “many of the features we’ve shown today will be on our planes this year.” I expect we’ll see Delta rolling out its Concierge this year, though some of the more interesting features are probably further down the road. Delta painted a pretty compelling future of how the airline will use AI to personalize the travel experience. It’s making a pretty big promise, which is risky. On the other hand, if it can solve the worst thing about travel, it seems like a pretty intelligent bet. EXPERT OPINION BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST @JASONATEN