TravelgateX conference CON-X 2023
European tech leaders met in Mallorca, home of TravelgateX, to take stock of the past year. Kate Harden-England reports
After the explosion of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard and GitHub’s Copilot onto the scene, the hype for generative AI continued to stay ablaze due to its many uses, from helping plan holidays to writing content. Speaking in a session where
Microsoft Azure demoed its OpenAI Service chatbot ChatBot-X, representatives from Expedia, Microsoft, Quonversa and Slack íĒšçŭššóíǝŨďóǝæóİóƛŨšǝĺĈǝ Gǝ adoption, including using generative AI in their daily lives, workplace and industry.
EXPERIMENT Daniel Hansens, senior director of product marketing of Slack, said “it’s really important to experiment” and that using the technology “speeds up the innovation cycle” for them. Since Slack launched the
integration with OpenAI in March 2023, 3,000 custom apps have been made with ĒįŘĨóįóİŨËŨĒĺİǝšŘóçĒƛçǝŨĺǝ their use cases. Hansens said: “When you
bring the data piece together with all of the feedback and conversations we’re having with customers, [generative AI] is a game changer for us.”
“Knowing your business and
the domain knowledge of your travel industry or you clients and networking is becoming more and more critical.” Hansens agreed: “Knowing
how to ask it a question to get the right answer is absolutely critical… you need to learn it as ĒŨǝĒšǝËǝšŘóçĒƛçǝšĥĒĨĨƿǙ
Personally, Hansens uses it
for admin tasks, including recording meetings and summarising action points. Iñaki Fuentes, CEO of
Quonversa, utilises the technology to simplify and automate actions, using it to “make decisions quicker” and to “prioritise” his tasks for the day, as well as his inbox. Shiyi Pickrell, Expedia
Group’s SVP for data and AI,
added: “As a technology builder in the travel industry, generative AI and ChatGPT is helping me and my team be more productive. She said generative AI has “a
lot of potential” and has helped “democratise the application of AI to non-technical folk”, meaning you no longer need to be technically capable to be able to programme or understand data.
Uncut: Now it’s personal
The time to innovate is now but we need to appropriately prepare ourselves and our businesses as best we can, according to Pedro Camara, CEO of Travelgate-X. Asked why the B2B travel marketplace
chose the tagline ‘Uncut: Now it’s personal’ for this year’s event, he said: “With everything that’s happening in the AI space right now, we’re at a turning point for humanity.
The rate at which AI advancements
are developing could expose organisations not quick enough to adopt and see them fall behind. Camara added: “Even for me, as a
techie, it’s hard to keep up with the pace.” He referred to the emerging technology
era we’re in now as “it’s personal, it’s here, and we need to do something about it”.
EMPATHISE Pickrell added that data is “exploding” but also causing a lot of friction. She explained ďĺƃǝƛİíĒİĉǝŨďóǝśĒĉďŨǝíËŨËǝËİíǝ understanding is challenging æŭŨǝçËİǝæóǝšĒįŘĨĒƛóíǝæƉǝ generative AI. “I often put myself in the
shoes of travel partners, like travel agencies, to think how can this technology change their lives, make their day-to- day work more productive?”
4 — OCTOBER 2023 —
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