The Heller Report: United Airlines' AI strategy: The Airline That Makes Decisions Fastest Wins

At United Airlines, a successful launch of generative AI applications to enhance customer service relied on engineering and risk management capabilities, CIO Jason Birnbaum tells Martha Heller in an interview for CIO.com. Engineering makes data useful in AI models. And cross-functional risk management ensures the use of gen AI applications are sound from legal, security and technological vantage points.

What book should every tech leader have on their shelf? What books have sharpened your thinking as a leader? Share your recommendations for the books you have recently read or heard that helped you as a business technology leader. We will publish a “recommended reading” list based on your responses in an upcoming issue.

Do dolphin sounds make up a language? The Georgia Institute of Technology’s Wild Dolphin Project has a new tool to help them find out: a large language model developed with Google. DolphinGemma uses the Gemma open AI model and a Google audio technology called SoundStream. The data to train the model comes from the Wild Dolphin Project’s decades of recordings. The system can “tokenize dolphin vocalizations, allowing the sounds to be fed into the model as they’re recorded,” ArsTechnica reports. Research divers plan to test whether they can prompt dolphins to “speak” to them in response to a colorful object they display and describe using simulated sounds from the AI model.

Heller has been retained to recruit a Senior Vice President, Digital Product Engineering for a global engineering and construction company. Reporting to the Chief Digital Technology Officer, this role is responsible for overseeing and executing the development and continuous delivery of high-quality software products and driving the development and implementation of AI services to support innovative business solutions. The ideal candidate will have 10+ years of senior leadership experience within product engineering, digital product delivery or a related field. The role will be based in the Midwest.