United’s Scott Kirby Warns AI ‘Tells You What You Want to Hear’
Photo Credit: A United Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Vincenzo Pace
Skift Take
Kirby's framework — AI for optimization, humans for judgment — is more specific than what most travel executives have articulated. It's worth paying attention to.
United Airlines executives didn’t mention the words “artificial intelligence” or "AI" on its most recent earnings call — not even once.
The company opted for broader language like "sophisticated technology," and CFO Michael Leskinen described a "new culture” rooted in “cost management and discipline and driving efficiency."
Still, CEO Scott Kirby made a bold claim: The airline has made "technology investments that I know do not exist at any other airline."
Days earlier, in a Stratechery interview, Kirby issued a warning about AI after a personal experience with ChatGPT. The bot assured his mother, who had broken a bone, that her slow recovery after 12 days was normal. When he re-ran the same scenario, but added that he felt “remarkably better,” the bot called that normal too.
“It is designed to tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear,” said Kirby.
That skepticism helps explain why Kirby says he'
