Meet Lufthansa’s Newest Employee……
Lufthansa introduced their newest ‘hire’ today in Munich when it unleashed ‘Josie Pepper’ in Terminal 2 to help arriving passengers. Coming in at just under 4 feet tall, she is Lufthansa’s newest powerhouse designed to help passengers find their way around the ‘airside’ part of Terminal 2. Whether it’s help finding a lounge, a partcular restaurant, or help in finding a gate, Josie’s sole objective is to make sure passengers get the answers they need.
Josie is an English-speaking marvel designed jointly by Lufthansa and Munich Airport and is their first foray into introducing ‘Artificially Intelligent Robots’ into an airport environment. For Josie’s first few weeks on the job, she’ll focus primarily on passengers that are transiting between the main terminal and the new satellite terminal. These first weeks will gauge her effectiveness and will give LH and MUC a chance to gather feedback from the public that interacts with her.
According to LH, ‘Josie’ is not a simple computer that recognizes generic questions and replies with pre-formatted answers. In fact, she is a product of the IBM Watson platform and is capable of learning as she goes, and can interact with passengers far beyond answering basic questions. In fact, Josie is expected to get smarter and smarter the longer that she stays on duty in the Terminal.
Here’s a short video courtesy of Munich and Lufthansa that shows Josie in action……
I’d be curious to hear any feedback from anyone that asked her for help…….
