AirAsia unveils AI chatbot with website and mobile app facelift

AirAsia today unveiled a website and mobile app facelift, including a chatbot named AVA (AirAsia Virtual Allstar) powered by artificial intelligence.

Photo Caption: (3rd from left) AirAsia Head of Innovation & Product Transformation Kenneth Andersson, AirAsia Group Head of Software Engineering Elias Vafiadis, AirAsia Chief Customer Happiness Officer Adam Geneave, AirAsia Deputy Group CEO (Digital, Transformation & Corporate Services) Aireen Omar and AirAsia Chief Product Officer Nikunj Shanti at the launch of AirAsia AVA chatbot and mobile application facelift.

The updates are designed with guests in mind, and are aimed at delivering a more seamless, user-friendly experience to airasia.com and the app’s 3.3 million monthly active users, from flight bookings to browsing for deals to online shopping and customer support.

New features include: 

New homepage

New comprehensive homepage designed for easier and faster navigation, including upcoming flight notice, search shortcut and recent searches, links to the best hotels, travel, duty-free shopping and activity deals, recommended destinations and link to BigPay, AirAsia’s money app.

AVA chatbot

Meet AVA, an AI chatbot available on the new live chat feature to respond to guest inquiries instantly. AVA currently speaks eight languages - English, Bahasa Malaysia, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. AVA was built by the AirAsia Software Engineering and Technology (AASET) and Customer Happiness team using technology from Ada, a Toronto based company that specialises in AI-powered customer experience. 

New flight search with map

iOS users can now choose where to go using an interactive map that pinpoints all AirAsia’s destinations in a single page. This feature is the first among airline apps. 

Combined Station Picker

A first among airline apps, iOS users can now select the nearest departure and arrival airports and filter by number of stops and flight duration.

Voice assistant

iOS users can now also check their upcoming flight status simply by asking Siri. To use this feature, just click the “Add to Siri” button under Flight Itinerary or My Bookings.

FACES enrollment

Guest may now enroll to AirAsia’s Fast Airport Clearance Experience System (FACES) on their mobile app to clear security and board their flight seamlessly. Just click on My Account and My FACES to take a 5 seconds video of your face. 

More features

On top of that, guests can search for the lowest fares using the Low Fare Calendar, which has been integrated in the app, earn and pay using BIG Points and enjoy instant member discounts when they log in.

AirAsia Deputy Group CEO (Digital, Transformation and Corporate Services) Aireen Omar said, “We are excited to welcome the new year with our new-look website and app that features AI and boasts a better, faster, more intuitive experience. We are always working to enhance our guest experience, and we will be adding more mobile app features in the months to come so it is no longer just a flight booking platform, but your complete travel companion. We encourage new users to download the app for free from the App Store or Google Play to experience these features for themselves.”

AirAsia mobile app users can enjoy 19% off bookings made via the app from 28 January to 3 February 2019 for travel between 1 August and 30 November 2019* by entering the promo code MOBILE19.

For the latest AirAsia news, activities and promotions, follow AirAsia on Twitter (twitter.com/AirAsia), Facebook (facebook.com/AirAsia) and Instagram (instagram.com/AirAsia).

*Terms and conditions apply.