<\/p>\n
This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.<\/em><\/p>\n Artificial intelligence has quickly become the centerpiece of travel innovation. Airlines use it to sharpen forecasting, speed up service, and personalize digital touchpoints. But as the travel sector embraces AI, a divide is emerging between companies that treat it as a plug-in enhancement and those that are redesigning their platforms so intelligence is native at every layer, including in the retailing systems that let airlines design, price, package, and sell their products across every channel.<\/p>\n IBS Software falls firmly into the latter camp. Instead of layering AI onto individual features, the company is rebuilding its platform so that data, automation, and contextual decision-making are foundational. As Chris Branagan, CTO at IBS Software, explained, the industry is still dominated by \u201cAI add-ons,\u201d a pattern that no longer delivers meaningful transformation. Teams must \u201cthink AI-first, not AI as something tacked onto the side,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \ufffc<\/p>\n To do that, IBS had to rethink everything \u2014 from core architecture and data models to how frontline employees interact with the system. That evolution laid the groundwork for the company\u2019s expanded collaboration with AWS<\/a>.<\/p>\n IBS has partnered with AWS for years, but its new Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) marks a deeper shift toward co-engineering rather than traditional cloud hosting. The two companies now work side by side on architecture, AI frameworks, and long-term product design.<\/p>\n Branagan described AWS as \u201calmost an extension of our architecture arm,\u201d noting that the teams regularly tackle difficult design challenges together. \u201cWe go to them with problems, and they\u2019ll deep dive with us to figure them out,\u201d he said. IBS often receives direct access to AWS product teams, which ensures the airline platform aligns with the latest cloud-native and AI-first design standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n This collaboration isn\u2019t limited to engineering. It also includes workshops, go-to-market support, and co-created frameworks, which serve as shared blueprints and playbooks that guide how the platform is designed and scaled. Branagan emphasized that AWS\u2019s involvement is hands-on throughout: \u201cThey\u2019re part of every stage of design and build. It\u2019s a multi-year engagement with deep links across our teams.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n This level of integration underscores the significance of what IBS and AWS are building together. \u201cAWS doesn\u2019t do many SCAs \u2014 only a handful in recent years,\u201d Branagan said. \u201cThey\u2019re selective, and they see this as a major opportunity to help build a new kind of airline platform.\u201d<\/p>\n With this new foundation in place, IBS is applying AI across airline retailing and operations in ways that go beyond simple automation. The company\u2019s product teams were challenged to rethink workflows from the perspective of real users \u2014 from crew schedulers to retail managers \u2014 and identify where AI could remove friction and surface smarter choices.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of building point solutions, we stepped back and looked at the journey from the user\u2019s perspective,\u201d Branagan said. \u201cWhat do they actually do day to day? How can AI take away the repetitive work and highlight the decisions that really matter?\u201d\u00a0 \ufffc<\/p>\n In iRetail, IBS Software\u2019s AI-first retailing platform for airlines, this shift creates deeply personalized, emotionally intelligent retail experiences. Branagan explained it with a simple scenario: \u201cIf someone\u2019s flying from the UK to the Faroe Islands in October, there\u2019s a good chance they\u2019re going to play golf. The system should recognize this and tailor the offer, perhaps by reducing the price of golf club carriage or surfacing a relevant partner product. It\u2019s essentially the Amazon retail model applied to travel.\u201d\u00a0 \ufffc<\/p>\n On the operational side, IBS\u2019s iFlight platform utilizes agent-like models to assist airlines in recovering from disruptions. When a delay or equipment issue triggers a cascade of impacts, the system analyzes available options and presents alternative solutions. \u201cIf a plane is delayed, the agents will look at every scenario \u2014 crew, aircraft swaps, scheduling impact \u2014 and come back with a set of viable choices,\u201d Branagan said. \u201cWe don\u2019t let the system make the choice. We give operators the best information so they can decide.\u201d\u00a0 \ufffc<\/p>\n This hybrid approach, where AI does the groundwork and humans make the final call, is a central pillar of the company\u2019s AI-first philosophy.<\/p>\n As AI grows more autonomous, trust and responsible design become critical. IBS\u2019s approach blends technical guardrails with rigorous testing and strict governance over how AI models are built.<\/p>\n According to Branagain, the company has been focused on designing its AI roadmap with safety in mind. \u201cWe choose tools we can control and avoid ones we can\u2019t put guardrails around,\u201d he explained, noting that certain publicly available models don\u2019t meet the company\u2019s standards for safety. IBS also restricts shadow IT, insisting that development teams use approved tools and environments to protect airline data and company IP.\u00a0 \ufffc<\/p>\n Testing also plays a major role. \u201cAnything we launch goes through extensive testing across real-world scenarios,\u201d he said. Additionally, every product undergoes CREST-accredited penetration testing before release. \u201cWe try to break it before anyone else can. It\u2019s about protecting our reputation and making sure anything we deliver is genuinely safe and reliable.\u201d\u00a0 \ufffc<\/p>\n Value is another guardrail. \u201cThese systems take time and resources to build,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we have to be sure every AI capability we deliver really adds value for customers.\u201d\u00a0 \ufffc<\/p>\n The aviation industry is advancing toward a future where AI plays a central role in how airlines operate, make decisions, and serve travelers. As autonomous agents become more capable, systems will increasingly interpret signals, exchange information, and propose solutions before human users even notice a problem.<\/p>\n Branagan believes agentic AI will be a defining part of this evolution. \u201cAgents are already part of what we\u2019re building,\u201d he noted. \u201cYou can have a single agent or multiple agents interacting, each solving a different problem and passing the results along. They essentially hold a conversation to arrive at the best outcome.\u201d\u00a0 \ufffc<\/p>\n This model \u2014 collaborative, contextual, and proactive \u2014 hints at what airline technology will look like in the coming decade. It also reinforces why AI-first architecture matters: legacy systems simply cannot support the degree of autonomy and agility the future will demand.<\/p>\n With AWS as a long-term partner, IBS is building that future in a way that blends innovation with responsibility. The shift is already underway, and its impact will be felt across operations, retailing, and the traveler experience.<\/p>\n The result is an industry gradually moving from reactive processes to predictive, personalized, and AI-orchestrated journeys, raising the bar for airline innovation.<\/p>\n For more information about <\/em><\/strong>IBS Software<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, click here. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This content was created collaboratively by IBS Software<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and Skift\u2019s branded content studio, <\/em><\/strong>SkiftX<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Rephrase in a different way as if you were a native American speaker as a content creation expert and do not talk about yourself or your experience in the text and do not show yourself as an artificial intelligence who wrote and fill the bullet point in the topic and speak the heart of the topic itself and dont take date of blog in ther first and dont take text like box of newsliter subscribe on post from content and romove all linke insert in content and and remove all affiliate disclosure phrases on content like this “This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links that allow us to earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Please see our Disclosure Policy for more info” and “#” put in its place bullet point, and romove name of the web site or his links we are take a content from our new creation, and don’t publish clone new content more than just one time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner. Artificial intelligence has quickly become the centerpiece of travel innovation. Airlines use it to sharpen forecasting, speed up service, and personalize digital touchpoints. 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Bringing AI to Life: Real-World Use Cases<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Trust and Ethics in an Automated World<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Road Ahead: Why the Future Is AI-First<\/strong><\/h2>\n