MEXICO CITY and SAN JOSE, Calif., April 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Today, as part of the Facebook F8 Conference, Aeromexico formally introduced Aerobot, its Artificial Intelligence (AI) customer service chatbot, with the help of its partners at Yalochat.com and IV.AI, leaders in chatbot development, neural network and machine learning programming. In just six months, the bot has taken the customer service department from 0-96% automation and dramatically reduced the average customer service resolution time via chat from an average of 16 minutes to down to 2 minutes.

“Mexicans are some of the most avid users of social chat platforms, such as Facebook Messenger and we saw a definite gap in what was being done to ease ongoing travelers pain points,” said Brian Gross, vice president of digital innovation, Aeromexico. “As part of our commitment to innovation and with the help of Yalochat.com and IV.AI, we were able to build a truly advanced AI brain that was fed historical customer service data in all forms, in order for it to be truly smart in how it handles requests, despite possible language challenges.”

Aerobot has been being quietly used by customers for the last six months, but is now about to gain full marketing support and is the first of its kind to handle any question posed in natural language (in Spanish; English coming soon) about a customer’s trip or the company’s service. This includes everything from checking flight status and purchasing tickets to providing recommendations on other information for their destinations and asking basic information like when to arrive at the airport. At F8, the airline is debuting its newest feature, group booking, which eliminates the need to coordinate tickets for multiple family or friends through email and phone calls.

“How many times have you missed a group trip because you couldn’t reach consensus? We are thrilled that Aeromexico is launching the Chat Extension feature for Aerobot; this is a game-changer for air travel,” said Stan Chudnovsky, Vice President of Product for Messenger. “This feature will allow groups to plan a trip together from within Messenger with the help of the AI customer service chatbot and split payments.”

Yalochat.com, is the premier chatbot and AI platform for Latin American businesses that are looking to radically improve their customer’s experience through chat. IV.AI automates customer service and builds proprietary AI ‘brains’ with its clients. Companies keep their data and the AI ‘brain’ is designed to address specific business needs. This sets IV.AI and Yalochat.com apart from competitors and with their combination of machine learning, neural networks and natural language, they provide AI solutions that achieve real results.

“Unlike many companies looking to jump on the AI bandwagon without the proper planning, Aeromexico knew what it was trying to achieve and was able to provide us with the data and their desired goals, allowing us to do what we do best — help companies use AI to get real results,” said Vince Lynch, CEO, IV.AI. “With the help of our partner Yalochat.com we were able to overcome some truly challenging issues, like multiple languages, slang and turning unstructured data into something comprehensive and useful, to create and feed a truly smart and effective AI brain for Aeromexico. Now Aeromexico is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition with the Aerobot.”

To try out the Aerobot, visit the Aeromexico Facebook page and send a message, or go to m.me/AeromexicoMX (Spanish version).

About Grupo Aeromexico Grupo Aeromexico, S.A.B. de C.V. is a holding company whose subsidiaries are engaged in commercial aviation in Mexico and the promotion of passenger loyalty programs. Aeromexico, Mexico’s global airline, operates more than 600 daily flights and its main hub is in Terminal 2 at the Mexico City International Airport. Its destinations network features more than 80 cities on The Americas, Europe and Asia, including 44 destinations in Mexico, 19 in the United States, 15 in Latin America, four in Canada, four in Europe and three in Asia. The Group’s fleet of more than 130 aircraft is comprised of Boeing 787, 777 and 737 jet airliners and next generation Embraer 145, 170 and 190 models. In 2012, the airline announced the most significant investment strategy in aviation history in Mexico, to purchase 100 Boeing aircraft including 90 MAX B737 jet airliners and 10 B787-9 Dreamliners. As a founding member of SkyTeam, Aeromexico offers customers more than 1,000 destinations in 177 countries served by the 20 SkyTeam airline partners rewarding passengers with benefits including access to 672 premium airport lounges around the world. Aeromexico also offers travel on its codeshare partner flights with Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines, Avianca, Copa Airlines and Westjet with extensive connectivity in countries like the United States, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia and Peru. www.aeromexico.com www.skyteam.com

About IV.AI or The AI Agency IV.AI is a machine learning company, focusing on strategy, creative and customised neural networks. They work with select companies to build smart AI-brains that sit at the nucleus of all artificial intelligence-based applications. The company uses its proprietary algorithms, neural networks and machine learning techniques to build customized AI-based solutions that can process any messy data and learn as they go. Clients include Sony Pictures, AdWeek, FOX, Aeromexico and more. To play with live AI and learn more about the business, go to https://iv.ai/ or check us out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theaiagency/ and Twitter: https://twitter.com/theAIagency.

About Yalochat.com Yalo is a chatbot and AI platform that helps businesses offer delightful customer experiences on FB messenger. Every business on yalo gets a chatbot with an optimised flow that handles customer requests to the point of payment and fulfillment. If at any point the customer need is beyond what the chatbot is capable of doing, the request gets seamlessly transferred to a human agent to provide resolution.

Yalo uses deep learning (a machine learning technique) to have chatbots learn from their human counterparts and a/b testing to continuously improve the experience. The team behind Yalo is composed of Columbia University and Salamanca engineers, former paypal technical leaders, and is supported by a group of investors from New York, Mexico and Latin America. www.yalochat.com

SOURCE Grupo Aeromexico, S.A.B. de C.V.