Year
2024
Client
Delta Air Lines
PROJECT TYPE
0 -> 1 FEATURE
Delta receives millions of customer service interactions each year across phone, chat, and in-person channels. This high volume of contact strains resources, slows service recovery, and impacts customer satisfaction.
Delta’s Virtual Assistant containment rate was 31% and customers contacted support for tasks that should be self-serve in the Fly Delta app.
Build an AI assistant with the potential to fundamentally change how 200M+ people experience travel.
Rather than adding another disconnected tool, we designed a single AI interaction layer that sits across the existing Delta ecosystem (SkyMiles, rebooking, baggage, day-of travel), so the assistant can answer questions and take action without bouncing users between systems.
That meant treating trust as a design problem. Every response needed to be explainable and every edge case had a clear path back to a human agent.
I led end-to-end product design and partnered with AI, data, engineering, UX research, product, and content strategy.
I explored the emerging AI landscape and interviewed reservations leadership and agents, then ran 15 qualitative interviews testing 15 concepts across 5 use-case bundles to surface what mattered most: convenience, control, and confidence. From there I built and tested interactive prototypes, defined the motion and conversation frameworks, and delivered the final UI and components on the Mach 1 design system.
Research combined competitive landscape analysis, call center interviews, stimulus testing, and moderated usability testing to understand where an AI assistant could genuinely help travelers, not get in their way.
We started by scanning the emerging AI landscape — ChatGPT, Apple Intelligence, Gemini — to see how people were already forming expectations for conversational AI. From there, we went straight to the people closest to the problem: interviews with reservations leadership and call center agents to surface real traveler pain points firsthand.
Stimulus testing validated 15 concepts across 5 use-case bundles, surfacing three consistent themes — convenience, control, and confidence. Moderated usability testing with eye tracking then validated our strongest use cases and confirmed what mattered most: trust, clarity, and interactions that matched how people already think about travel.
We integrated with the Decagon platform to build one interaction layer to handle travel requests and reduce help center load.
We configured AOPs (Agent Operating Procedures) to govern how the assistant behaves, then connected it to Delta's CRM, knowledge bases, and policy systems to give it real context on a traveler's itinerary, status, and eligibility rather than generic answers. That integration is what let Concierge move from a chatbot that talks about your trip to one that actually knows it.
Validation moved from a contained pilot to an org-wide precedent for how Delta builds AI experiences.
Pilot Test
We piloted Concierge through the existing "Message Us" entry point on the Help Center page — no new infrastructure required — running a 12-week measurement window to 5% of delta.com users. The pilot handled 12k conversations with 88% containment and a 95% CSAT score, a strong enough signal to move beyond a single Help Center entry point.
Beta Experiment
That signal made the case to scale into a persistent presence inside the Fly Delta app for A/B beta experimentation. Scaling also meant raising the bar on reliability, so the team invested in monitoring, guardrails, and a phased rollout instead of a single launch.
Design System
Alongside the rollout, we designed the AI components as contributions to the Mach 1 design system, setting the pattern other teams would use to build AI experiences across Delta.
Delta Concierge grew from a 12-week pilot on delta.com to a staged beta in the Fly Delta app, and has been available to 100% of SkyMiles Members since Aug 10, 2026.
In the app, access expanded from 5% to 15% of SkyMiles Members as disruption and day-of-travel capabilities were added. Rather than scaling immediately, we expanded access in stages to test the product in real travel moments and learn directly from customers what to improve.
Core Features & Capabilities:
Disruption & Rebooking
Explains what changed on a disrupted flight and helps members find alternatives, or cancel an eligible flight with a refund request or eCredit in real time.Trip & Bag Tracking
Surfaces flight details, seat and gate (24 hours before departure), and bag status through claim.
Account Management
Looks up mileage balance, MQDs toward Medallion status, and eCredits without digging through menus.
Human Handoff
Connects members to Delta Reservations and Customer Care when they need a person.
Below is a snapshot of the phase 1 rollout beta test results.
