AI Helps Build Travel Industry Resilience: Salesforce's Xu

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00:00I got to tell you, a lot of my colleagues, a lot of friends had their trips canceled or disrupted over the weekend.

00:05It doesn't seem like anything could actually help right now, except actual air traffic controllers and actual TSA agents showing up to work.

00:15Tim, thanks so much for having me.

00:17We are seeing with the evolving situation right now at the FAA through our own agent platform, Agent Force,

00:24that it's really important for companies to have agentic solutions in order to serve their customers during this very critical time

00:33where we're seeing a surge in the system.

00:35As an example, at Agent Force right now, we work closely with Heathrow.

00:40Heathrow has more than 80 million passengers that walk through their airports every single year.

00:47And at Heathrow, those passengers are walking at 4 a.m. in the morning.

00:52It could be at noon where they're looking for lost luggage.

00:55Regardless of the time of day, we have an agent with them called Haley that's helping Heathrow passengers right now on the ground

01:02using AI agents to address their customer queries, really using that ability for AI agents to surge capacity for these companies

01:11to build more resilient solutions.

01:13And this is critical right now with the FAA situation that's breaking, enabling our customers

01:18and all the companies that are using AI agents to flex to a limited capacity

01:22and really better serve those travelers that are on the road today.

01:25Well, I mentioned the president's post on social media just in the last hour or so.

01:29The post continues to say that if you want to leave service in the near future,

01:33these are people who are not showing up to work, he says.

01:37He says you will be quickly replaced by true patriots who will do a better job on the brand new state-of-the-art equipment,

01:42the best in the world that we are in the process of ordering.

01:44That new equipment, it's come up fairly often in recent months when talking about the challenges

01:49at air traffic control and for air traffic controllers here in the U.S.

01:53Does Salesforce have any role in the new air traffic control equipment that is being ordered,

01:58whether it's software or something else?

02:01What I can share, Tim, is that we have a brand new initiative, Mission Force,

02:06where we're working with national security as well as the U.S. government,

02:10as well as allied governments, to best support them using technology

02:15and bringing the most modern solutions, including our AI, to help support national security today.

02:19You've got a great view on the capabilities, not just now, but in the coming years,

02:24when it comes to this technology.

02:26Within our lifetimes, do you think AI could replace air traffic controllers?

02:30You know, Tim, we are very excited about the vision of enabling our customers to be successful

02:39using AgentForce, our AI agent platform, deploying agents in the travel industry,

02:45for example, with customers like Engine, Heathrow, Singapore Airlines, FinAir.

02:50For us, it's really about enabling those companies to work in a way where their employees,

02:55their humans, and AI are partnering closely together to enable that to happen.

02:59I'll give you a very concrete example.

03:02Singapore Airlines works closely with AgentForce today.

03:05With Singapore Airlines, we have over 3.5 million AI workflows that are being run today,

03:11and those workflows are not actually directly with their customers,

03:15but actually servicing the humans on the Singapore Airlines team,

03:19working closely with them in cases such as when their service representative

03:23is helping a customer with a critical issue on the ground.

03:26Our AI workflows are actually summarizing those cases so that those companies and those reps

03:32can now better service their customers in real time.

03:35We think that the future is very much AI agents and humans working closely together.

03:41Yeah, I certainly understand that from a customer service perspective, Nancy,

03:45but from the perspective of this high-stress decision-making that takes place in a control tower,

03:52is that something that could be done by AI?

03:55And then in the future, we could sidestep issues and avoid issues such as these.

03:59AI is a critical part of building a resilient business,

04:05and I think we're seeing this right now with this FAA situation.

04:09And it's not just the FAA, right?

04:11You know, right now we're seeing volatility in every market, and this is not news to us.

04:16But what's really exciting, I think, is that AI agents are actually helping companies become more resilient

04:22in these volatile markets, not only in travel with the companies that I listed earlier,

04:28but also we have companies like 1-800-Accountant, right?

04:31They see massive surges during peak tax season and the types of queries their customers are coming with help for.

04:38And we're able to, in the case of 1-800-Accountant, help them address more than 90% of those cases

04:44autonomously, end-to-end, really serving their customers and ensuring that when you do have surges in the system like that,

04:51or these black swan events, AI agents can help these customers be resilient and help them better serve their own customers.

04:57You mentioned partnerships with Singapore Airlines, London's Heathrow Airport.

05:02But here in the United States, do you have partnerships with airports where this technology actually could help

05:10in terms of air traffic controllers, in terms of helping people who are stranded?

05:14I mean, we have colleagues who, they were told over the weekend that they wouldn't even be able to find a flight until Wednesday.

05:19And certainly some of that is on the airline, but the core of the issue still has to do with those people

05:25not showing up to work on the airport side and the air traffic control side.

05:31Tim, we have customers that we work closely with like Engine.

05:36Engine is one of the leading platforms right now that is helping do travel management for companies.

05:42So it's across not just airlines, travel, flight bookings, but also those hotel bookings and those car rentals

05:50that are being impacted as a result downstream.

05:52With a company like Engine, you know, they're handling a large volume of customer queries here in the U.S. today.

05:58And in those situations, we're today helping them increase or decrease their average handling time by more than 15%.

06:06And over 30% of those complex bookings that are happening end-to-end,

06:10as well as those case resolutions for their customers, are being done autonomously using AgentForce agents.

06:16And the impact of that, Tim, is really helping a company like Engine surge their capacity in this critical period

06:23so that they're able to flex up and down depending on what their customers are needing.

06:27And right now, of course, the flex is going up.

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