A couple of years ago, Delta Airlines introduced the concept of ‘Parallel Reality’ at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. With this, they enhanced a customer’s airport experience by using a public screen to display personalised information relevant to each passenger.
Now, interestingly, one of the largest IT companies in India is building a customised passenger experience on similar lines.
“We are in the process of developing a comprehensive web-based mobile digital concierge that represents a significant leap forward in meeting modern travellers’ expectations,” said Wipro Limited Canada transportation cluster head and general manager Anudeep Kambhampati in an exclusive interaction with AIM.
The new platform integrates journey planning, baggage tracking, and personalised recommendations that will be tailored to each passenger’s travel path.
“The integration of generative AI chatbots further enriches this personalised experience, offering real-time, interactive assistance,” said Kambhampati. Wipro has conducted a few PoCs around this in different stages and is in the process of refining the experience before it is launched to its clients.
Wipro vs the World
While Wipro is increasingly working its way into the airline industry, with strategic partnerships with Toronto Pearson and industry bodies such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airport Council International, other Indian IT players are also in the race.
IT giant Infosys also offers similar AI/ML solutions through its cloud platform Infosys Cobalt Airline Cloud where services such as optimised baggage tracking, handling, security monitoring and many more are offered.
TCS has Aviana which provides smart airport solutions and engineering operations through its unified data platform. Non-IT players such as Prisma AI are also providing services through computer vision technologies at Adani airports.
Interestingly, the current technology partner for Digi Yatra is IDEMIA, a French company which provides their services at the Delhi, Hyderabad and Goa airports. In addition, the Digi Yatra Foundation recently severed ties with Dataevolve, a Hyderabad-based company who served as their initial IT solutions provider, seeking to partner with Infosys and TCS.
Wipro told AIM that it has been offering technological and operational services to enhance airport facilities. “Our computer vision AI technology has revolutionised passenger flow analytics, providing real-time wait times with over 90% accuracy,” said Kambhampati.
The company’s in-house product, VisionEDGE, powers more than 5,000 flight information displays across 15+ airports in the US, Canada, India, and the Middle East.
Wipro’s services reach over 300 million passengers per year, covering over 200 airlines across 300+ destinations, with over 15+ terminals and 25+ runways covered as well.
“On the customer-facing side, we are collaborating with airports in North America and the Middle East to deploy generative AI-powered virtual assistants,” said Kambhampati.
In 2022, Wipro also developed a first-of-its-kind passenger queue system that provided passengers with real-time boarding updates.
A Unique Generative AI Strategy
Wipro uses Azure OpenAI, AWS AI, OpsRamp, ServiceNow AI, Zensors, the Wipro AI 360 platform – the company’s holistic and AI-centric innovation ecosystem, and several other tech infrastructure products.
Kambhampati highlights that generative AI’s inherent intelligence can be trained but not fully controlled. Thanks to this, Wipro recommends a “phased implementation strategy” to address inaccuracies and legal concerns by exposing AI applications to a select section of the public for feedback and benchmarking.
Wipro has been making long strides in the generative AI race. With a rising demand from Wipro’s customers for AI solutions, the company is providing enterprise services by developing AI models using a generative AI framework. The company has even trained 225,000 employees in AI 101.
Wipro CEO Srini Pallia had earlier said, “We focus on industry-specific offerings and business solutions led by consulting and infused with AI, and we’ll continue to build this.”
