They need technical expertise, but also need to be able to communicate, manage teams and understand how AI will affect every facet of business strategy
This week Google parent company Alphabet announced a $5billion investment in the UK, with the majority due to be spend developing Google’s AI. This follows the mounting trend of Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta who are reported to collectively to invest more than $300 billion in AI infrastructure and R&D over just a few years.
At every travel industry conference that I attend (and let me tell you there’s quite a few of them), AI is a regular topic of discussion, if not the dominating agenda item. Only last week at Travel Weekly’s Future of Travel event, hosted at Google’s London offices there was the fashionable session on AI. However some of the panellists suggested that travel was behind the curve in terms of aligning and adopting AI technologies with their core business functions (as opposed to experimenting with it).
Companies which have board members with a background in engineering let alone AI/machine learning are a rarity and that goes for the travel sector as well. The curiosity definitely exists but there’s also a degree of inertia as boards want to understand the risks.
What are these supposed risks? Should travel companies be more part of the vanguard? Board directors have fiduciary responsibilities, including the management of risk. We know that there can be inherent inaccuracies in what the LLMs produce, as well as IP and copyright implications, though perhaps less so in travel. What about employee well-being? Some research has shown that individuals working alongside AI display lower levels of job satisfaction and motivation. What about the effect on the critical-thinking skills of management?
It feels in these circumstances that the logical next step would be for travel companies to hire a senior AI executive or perhaps a Head of AI. However a search on Linkedin identifies only 2 people with either AI or Artificial Intelligence in their job title, working in the travel industry (categorised as “Travel Arrangements” by Linkedin). I compared this to the Retail sector where there were 38 people, and Financial Services which found 229.
Of course the majority of travel companies will have a CTO on their board, whose remit will cover AI, but how detailed is their knowledge and experience in the field of AI and machine learning? At the Future of Travel conference the previous week, Dame Irene Hays announced that she had recently hired a new AI focused Non-Exec to join her board solely to advise them on AI. This feels like it could be the start of a trend.
Is your business considering the creation of a dedicated role for AI? Does this huge subject matter not demand such focus? Or is the travel sector really behind the curve when it comes to embracing AI?
Article written by Ian Brooks, co-founder of Gail Kenny Executive Recruitment and Melt Digital
