[Music] [Klaasjan Tukker] Welcome at this very first I think breakout session for you here at Adobe Summit 2024. My name is Klaasjan Tukker. I'm senior director of product marketing for Adobe Experience Platform and applications at Adobe. And soon, I will be joining on stage by Shayan from Delta Air Lines talking about his experiences, his team's experiences about embarking on a journey to really change the way they live customer experiences to Delta Air Lines travelers.

Before I dive in, I've been working at Adobe since 2008.

And in this domain since roughly 2017.

I moved over to the US, and that's what you hear the accent that you're hearing is Dutch. So typically, I call this moment right here, the KLM moment.

And to help you understand why is, you're about to embark on this long-haul flight. By the way, this is just one hour. So not really long haul, but you get on this long-haul flight. And then when the seat belt sign, fasten seat belt sign goes off, the trolley rolls through the aisle. And you're being fed just like you had lunch just now. And then they dim the cabin lights, and then you're supposed to take some entertainment, learn something, or some of you might start to dose off. For this session, I hope you're staying with us. It stays entertained, and we'll have time for Q and A at the end.

The other thing that I do, and my colleagues roll their eyes when I say so, sometimes, you got to liven up the work a little bit. We're serious all day. We're talking about personalization. We're talking about data strategies and can be so into the weeds. So a couple of years back, I introduced a concept internally to start every meeting that we have with the equivalent of a dad joke, but in our domain. And they're called bad platform jokes.

So I will have one for you. So two profiles walk into a bar. Says one to the other, you look eerily familiar to me. Like, yep. That's your lookalike modeling at work. Here you go.

Good. All joking aside. What I'm going to walk you through today. First of all, I want to talk about what from an Adobe perspective do we think should be the key requirements for a data foundation? Probably, if you selected the session, you are here to learn about personalization.

And to use those phrase to deliver the right message at the right moment, with the right content, with the right offer, at the right location, at the right time, to do everything right. And I know we will never get everything right. But if we get some of these rights, probably we do it in the right way.

Then we'll talk about a number of use cases, and I just want to put use cases back on our radar.

I've worked with large customers, smaller customers globally. And typically when I talked to them, I like to think in the context of patterns, think that work well, as well as empty patterns, things that don't do those. Imagine you're cooking at home, you have a hot pan on the stove top, and don't pick that pan up without mittens. That's the anti-pattern that you know you're going to burn your finger. In our worlds, there are tons of anti-patterns. One of those anti-patterns is when I hear conversations that include the word all. Let's bring all of the data over here. Let's specialize all of the customer journeys. So whenever I hear the word all, it's like, is that really the way we want to talk about this. So use cases help us to become more precise.

And then third, talking about best practices in selecting those use cases, because all of you-- Yes, I mean, everyone in the room here is operating on a different level of maturity.

Some of you might be very well and advanced and know what you want to do, know exactly the ingredients that you need, and others are just getting started and trying to get their head around like, how do I peel this corner so I can get going.

So let's simplify it down. What is it that as brands you're looking to do? Basically, as brands, I think the Nirvana state that we can get to is to operate and behave and interact as we do as humans.

Here at Summit, you meet people for the very first time.

You pick up some traits about them.

There're some circumstantial information that will help you. Well, likely when you're here, you're in the domain of creativity, the domain of experiences, the domain of personalization, so that's what you have in common, and then you start to exchange information.

And the next time you meet, you're able to continue that composition.

And even when you don't meet at Summit, but maybe it's on a Zoom call or at another event or in person, we don't have channel amnesia. Yeah. We are not tying the information that we receive to the channel that we operate in. That would be otherwise a very, very strange experience.

We as humans also know how to have this engagement with a level of trust.

When do you have a colleague reach out to you and say, hey, keep this only to yourself but XYZ. That's a trust data labeling that was added to that piece of content.

And in the end, why do we exchange? Because we want to enjoy, we want to learn, we want to grow our experiences.

So from a brand experience, if we bring it back there are actually two elements that come continuously exchanged? Number one is how much time does each individual consumer or contact spend with your brand? We can express that in love for the brand, loyalty, likeliness to come back, likeliness to refer in a positive way.

And then the other component, that's what we're also measured on is money spent with a brand.

Whether that's in airline situation, tickets booked, travel booked or in retail, products purchased, immediate entertainment, subscriptions taken out. There's an exchange of value. And it's the balance that is happening from one side, exchange of value to exchange of time and time spent.

Very frequently when I talk to customers, I say what is this campaign for? Are you focusing on time spent? And basically the exchange of love? Or are you focusing in this case on retargeting someone to get a transaction going? And sometimes those things are different.

Because for brands, we love to shout it from the roofs. We have something to tell. We want to come to you. But sometimes we also have to figure out what's the right moment to shut up.

As important as telling what matters.

But how are we evolving? What do we do? I think if we would rewind ourselves 5 to 10 years in time, people would say like, come up with a brilliant ID for a campaign. Makes sure you have the right creative for that campaign. Make sure you have the right audience selected for that campaign. Run the campaign, sit, and wait.

Maybe if you're lucky you're measuring the outcome or otherwise you move on to the next one. Those are typically what I call marketer initiated or brand initiated campaigns. It's something that is still happening every day. Open up your mailbox, if you're using, for example, Google Mail like me personally, they've got this whole promotion section, and it shows things about frequency like, man, this brand is hitting me up really multiple times every day. Brand initiated. And you can really see the differences in those brand-initiated campaigns. Which one are distributed as a one size fits all? Which ones are distributed to more understanding of me? But let's turn around. How do you want to be treated? And basically, what we see where the world is expanding to is those in the moment engagement where relevance is key, where the message is concise and clear, but those are also the hardest moments.

Think about moments in your life. Think about moments in your friends or family's life that you tie into, and you do something special. Think about it in the same way as a brand. How can I tie into the moments that are special? Okay. It's not as simple as it's like, you forgot your shopping cart. Please check out. One hour later, you forgot your shopping cart, please check out, and we all know the patterns that are in there. So in order to do that, that shift, that expansion from a brand-based initiation to in the moment or real time journey is real critical.

And it starts with your use case, identifying what are the signals and where do the signals come from to tie into.

Also, this is a diagram that I put into a lot of my presentation with customers. Because this is the biggest headwind.

You might be thinking like great, it's about data. How is that a headwind? Well, as you start to progress to learn more about the brand, the consumers, or the business context that you engage with, you also have to start selecting signal from noise.

Let me do a little bit of an exercise with you.

If I would ask you, what was the last beverage that you drank? Probably you can tell me right away because it's pretty top of mind.

What was the last trip that you took personally? That is pretty top of mind.

If I now would like to say, good tell me how much did you spend on groceries in the last month. You were like, come on guys on that. How is it relevant? Like, well, it is really relevant if you're in retail, and you want to segment people. But we don't have a human top of mind, let's say, catalog of all grocery receipts. Maybe one of you has that capacity, but I think the majority of the room goes like, no, I don't have that. So we need to go back in our finance system, accounting system. Calculated it up and say, okay, I spent 800 dollars in groceries in the last month. Good. Now we have the answer, and we can start to personalize on it and working through that. So as you go through this data, there are more data points coming in and determining signal from noise.

Determining where aggregation is key to have a better signal is going to be extremely critical.

And that is where during the keynote this morning, you heard that we introduced a new capability called Federated Audience Composition to work with your customer data, your data warehouse to basically do that calculation and say you give me for all customers, how much they spend in the last month, so we can run a campaign against that.

The other thing is fragmentation.

And on the slide, fragmentation of data, fragmentation of systems and fragmentation of teams.

Couple of years back, I met with a German automotive company.

We said in a conference room, typical conference room, and it was a U-shaped room.

And the first team entered the room, and that was the team that did everything around content. They ran Adobe Experience Manager, they deployed Adobe Target on that page, and they knew all about content.

They sat on the left. Then the second team came into the room, and that was a team that ran Digital Analytics. They had deployed Adobe Analytics. They were using Audience Manager at that point in time and were basically answering the questions like, give me an audience like this or give me an audience like that, and they fed that into the team that ran Target through the back end.

And then the third team came into the room. It was the team that ran CRM and email communication. They knew, know how to reach that person with their at sign.

And we spoke about what does it mean if we start to work across channels. What does it mean if we turn the table around and start to operate in the context of the consumer, the consumer looking to buy a car or the consumer looking for a mobility solution. It's not always about buying anymore.

And after 30 minutes of conversation, they said, wait a sec, that requires us to be thinking differently about our teams because we sit here in on room, but actually one of the only moments that we meet each other and talk to each other is downstairs in the cafeteria.

Luckily, they have evolved from that.

But this is one of those, let's say, patterns/anti-patterns that I would like to give you to the organization as well. Because we talk about technology, but technology is not directly going to change the way how we work as people.

There is such a thing defined and if you want to look it up. It's Conway's law.

Let's say someone operating in a product organization, Conway's law is always top of mind. Conway's law says that the output of an organization is a resemblance of the organizational structure.

If you think about who you report to, who you work with, those people are much easier to reach than the people that sit in a different team or a different location, and now you need to work across. All of a sudden, when you start to run your campaigns across channels, you will need to work with a different team. That team speaks a different language. Maybe that team has different KPIs. Maybe that team has a different road map and different deliverables for US dependency. So although we can talk about technology a lot, let's not underestimate the last part, and that is the fragmentation in teams.

And no, it doesn't work to put everyone in one team because we still need to be able to do decisions. And there are multiple ways that you can solve this, there are other sessions at Summit where we go into team dynamics to make that possible.

And then let's talk about the other elephant in the room. That's the continued collaboration or tension between technical minded IT, infrastructure, and data people. And those that are on the front lines that need to run the engagement.

Think about in your own world, how long does it take to get a definition of an audience, translated into actually a list of people that you can put in a system to run. Can I get everyone who visited our store in the last two weeks and actually purchased this particular product? Yeah. That's okay. Next week Friday. Does it work? Like, no, no. I need to run a campaign now.

It's a very common thing. Whenever let's say, I meet with customers, and I talk about this. This is basically the-- Yeah, two different size of the organization that we see. And with that, how do we bridge that gap? And in the conversation with Shayan, we're going to definitely talk about this topic. Because it's about speaking each other's language. It is about removing the concern that data need to be brought in one place. You don't need all the data. I don't need all of your, let's say your grocery receipts from the last month. I just want to know the number because then I can personalize you. So in the domain of what we call personalized insights and engagement, basically, we're talking about a connected ecosystem. I was one of the founding product managers of our Experience Platform initiative. And these events make me really proud. Because they show what customers have been able to do, and they also show where customers are going and how they're utilizing our technology.

The key element is we live in a world of multiple technologies, technology stacks. And from an Adobe perspective, what we're trying to do, especially in this more modern world is how do we make sure we go beyond integrated? And when we say beyond integrated, we mean connected. How do I make sure that the first mile of customer experience that's what's happening on the web and that is what's happening on the mobile application translates in the right way in building that understanding of the customer, translates in the right way we engage with the customer. And as these customers leave breadcrumbs across multiple channels, how can we bring that back in analysis to then turn it back into an audience? Without needing to leave, let's say, the ecosystem that we live in.

So if there are a number of things, and whether you do that with the Adobe ecosystem or but ecosystem in any of our colleagues that operate in this market.

It starts with the deep understanding a respect for the customer.

Those what I say are the humanized words. In the technical world, we say, you need to have a unified profile with consent. Like, okay, that sounds really harsh. But it is finding the relevant attributes that you need to keep.

Probably, all of you have gone through a privacy one on one training.

From an Adobe perspective, I have to go through the training every year. Standard as a part of our practices. And the privacy one on one training says only capture the information that you need. Only keep the information for as long as you needed for the purpose that you said you're going to use it for, and then remove that information after.

And we say, yes, that makes sense. And then I talked to data teams and IT integration teams. They said, no, we want to just load all the data into the system, and my question is why? What are you going to do with it? So that is a deeply understanding and respect. You don't need everything to know about me in order to personalize something to me. You just need to choose the relevant data points.

The second compound is that respect for a customer.

We have seen massive changes in the industry to support and to benefit us as consumers. So making sure that consent is captured. That consent is not only about activation. We see now consent moving into the domain of machine learning and AI as well. I don't want my data about me to be used to train a model. I don't want you to personalize me based on AI signals that you get from somewhere else. Those are new consent preferences they're popping up.

The second component is to deliver impactful and engaging experiences.

The engaging experience is very much first depending on the time.

Can you imagine probably somewhere around 6:37 AM in the morning, you woke up to get ready for keynote.

Imagine your TV would jump on and straight away start bombards you with the ability to go to one of Las Vegas buffets. Like sorry, guys. I really don't have the stomach for that right now. I just want coffee. Yeah. So the time and the signal on when to respond to is really important.

And this is actually where it becomes really difficult.

It's easy to talk about real time, but it's more difficult to talk about real time in the context of the data that you need. So you have to pick the signals that you're going to bring in.

And then finally, how do we now continuously learn and optimize? And with that, apply the principles that sits underneath.

This is where we have a number of use cases and in the conversation with Shayan, we're going to come back to that.

The use case of break down in generic languages. First of all, intelligent re-engagement. In retail, we call this an abandoned shopping cart or an incomplete booking or a mortgage application that has not been completed. How do you engage with a customer across those channels and basically do that in an intelligent way? Where was the person when he made the booking? Is it still relevant? The second one use case that we can look at is how do we convert a customer and how do we optimize that conversion? It is looking at what are the signals that have already purchased. Suppression use cases the number one thing where we can optimize customer experiences? Think about those moments where you purchase something, or you looked at something online, you purchase something, and the emails and the engagements keep coming. Are you still interested in this? Like, yes, I already purchased that. So those suppression use cases, but the opposite to that conversion optimization is key.

And then finally, how do we think about the customer in the lifetime of our business? Maybe we don't want to drive that decision today, but we want to drive that decision in the future.

So at Summit, you can learn more at the pavilion at many sessions about this set of applications. With Adobe, we provide you that capability. We're not going to talk deep about the technology underneath. I'm not going to dissect everything that's on the slide here.

But the key takeaway is, you want to make sure that as an organization, you look at those key principles. The first mile, the understanding, the activation and the engagement and measurement as a result.

And then back to teams.

You have probably a specific role, whether you're an experienced maker and you focus on data, whether you're an engagement marketer, whether you run a marketing knowledge stack.

All of these people are part of the conversation in an organization today. So how does your data strategy or CDL play in? What does your marketing strategy team think? What are the organizational objectives? The CFO, I need to have sign up to invest in this new thing. What a privacy officer like, hey, we are going to work with this set of data. Do you agree? So it's not just technology. I think by now, we've gotten to a point where technology enables, but as humans and organizations, we have a huge amount of catch up to do.

And with that, I like to invite Shayan on stage. And let us walk through, let's say, a quick Fireside Chat to learn about how Delta Air Lines has basically walked through this and learn about where they are on the journey. Welcome, Shayan. [Shayan Samani] Thank you Tukker.

So I already did my introduction based on KLM. I know it's a Delta partner. But can you tell something about yourself? Sure. Yeah. So, hey everyone. Very nice to meet you, and it's really great to be back at Summit. I was just telling my team that this is my seventh Adobe Summit, really privileged to be back here. And Adobe Summit it's really great to connect with other industries, other individuals and really learn about the product enhancements, but also, what others are doing in with the products in a way that you might have not thought about. And so that's something that I typically glean from this experience. But as I mentioned, I'm Shayan Samani, I'm the General Manager of Digital Transformation at Delta Air Lines. And in my role, I'm charged with navigating the enterprise through the evolving digital landscape as it relates to leveraging strategic technologies and partnerships such as the Adobe, and really trying to enhance our capabilities as it relates to digital tools. So for me, my primary focus is to create enterprise value as it relates to these innovative tools and really empowering our employees to deliver exceptional value for our customers.

That's a huge responsibility. Because if we think about Delta as a brand for a moment. It's not like, your mom-and-pop store. You touch millions of travelers each year, different regions, different business arms.

What basically was the driving factor for you and your team to basically embark on this digital transformation journey? Yeah, so when we started on this digital transformation journey, it really wasn't just swapping out old noisy printers at the gate for fancy digital displays. It's certainly really sustainable, but it's certainly much more than that. And I think for us, and you'll hear if you talk to anyone at Delta, COVID-19 really accelerated this ability to embrace digital for us more than ever, and it really became our lifeline to ensure safety, comfort, and confidence during uncertain times. So I want to ask you all question. Raise your hand if you've undergone a business or digital transformation.

Yeah. Okay. Keep your hands raised if you're currently still undergoing that transformation.

And keep your hands up if you plan on going through that transformation.

And so really the theme that you start to kind of see here around the room is that in today's day and age, transformation is a constant state. You're not ever really done transforming. And it's like being on autopilot. So even when you're cruising, you're always adjusting, you're always fine tuning and at Delta aligning our digital transformation to some of our business goals. It's really meant looking beyond the immediate and the obvious and really looking or really maybe not taking digital for the sake of just doing digital, but how do these experience enhance every touch point, ensuring safety, as I mentioned, efficiency and personalization at scale and continuously adapting and evolving to the changing needs of customers especially in today's day and age. And the journey never ends, but it certainly gets more and more exciting.

So I spoke just about people process technology. And I think those are the elements that we will touch shortly as well because I'm curious to how your team and Delta in general will be looking and working with us. So let's start with technology. Before you started to work, let's say, with Adobe on had a journey that you're on now. Can you describe what did your technologies stack look like? What were the advantages and or disadvantages? Yeah. Sure. It's a really great question. And so for us, before we really embrace the full scope of Adobe Experience Platform, our tech stack was this quilt of colorful, complex patterns, and we are and remain a very proud partner of Adobe, an Adobe customer, and that's inclusive of Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Audience Manager. But maybe just to be transparent for a second, it's not all Adobe. We're not a full Adobe shop. We have Salesforce Marketing Cloud. We have Twilio. We have our own proprietary systems. We have other technologies that we look to bring in and integrate. And I'm sure many of you can relate to having these tools married together and empowering it with data, but just beyond just the tools and data around just training teams across these tools. It's not an easy feat to do, right? And so really the truth is that each of these tools have certain strengths, but they also have their own language and their own set of rules.

Each solution is really powerful on its own, but really marketing today really relies on the cohesion and integration of these solutions. Our customers don't just see Delta marketing separate from the booking experience or separate from the in-flight experience, they just see one Delta in that continuous journey. And so while these tools are great and they're really, really powerful, we're craving this centralized management for experiences, and this isn't just a Delta challenge. This is cross industry, right? And we're trying to look at a way where we can kind of create a tapestry with these technologies that start to complement one another and really start to create this cohesive and seamless narrative.

So I want to touch upon that for a moment because yesterday, we had our customer advisory board day. You were in the real time advisory board meeting. I led the customer advisory board that spans, let's say, across this portfolio. And in the opening, someone raised their hand and said, well, how is Adobe working to make Adobe work better with non-Adobe? So it's a-- I think a top-of-mind question for a lot of people because it's expected that our stuff works well, but I should mention not everyone has that common infrastructure. So can you speak about how do you use that Adobe technology, especially with the non technology, non-Adobe technology components? Yeah. So I'll speak. For a second in Zoom, I want to just talk about Delta for a second. So for Delta and in digital specifically, the way that we create value for the rest of the enterprise is through our enabler statements. You'll hear us talk about one click, one platform, one source of truth. And one click really represents this commitment to efficiency and ease of use not only for our customers, but our marketers and our service teams.

Our one platform signifies a singular platform that acts as a hub for our Martech universe that integrates the tools that I mentioned about Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Twilio for a unified approach. And then one source of truth, consolidating data to a comprehensive 360-degree view of our customers and having that data available in real time.

And so Adobe's role in that is actually really pivotal and having sat in the conversation yesterday, really hearing about some of the sneak peeks and behind the scenes items that we're really going to get is we're going to really be able to start to leverage data and content in ways that we started to really dream about 5, 10 years ago and really start to move away from these singular experiences by the channel and start to enable these omnichannel experiences in journeys. And that's what's I'm really excited about. And what Adobe allows us to do or rather Adobe is not forcing us to just throw technology at the problem, but really apply it judiciously, really moving beyond those traditional marketing use cases and transition to journeys that are dynamic in cross channel, and really making interacting with Delta not a transaction, but really an ongoing engagement.

So let's pick up on what you just set. Journeys that are dynamic and cross channel. I'm sure you had a team ready to go to take those words and say, I know exactly what you want, I know exactly what you a need. What happens in your teams to get this going? Yeah. So it's certainly an evolution. You really don't know what you don't know until you get into the middle of it and so if I could just share a little bit about our transformation journey at Delta, we recognized that there was a pivotal shift that was taking place, that was necessary from operating in isolated channels and really embracing a holistic approach and not just using multiple channels to launch the one off seasonal enterprise campaigns. We're really starting to make it seamless and integrated customer experience across all of our touch points. So that's inclusive of delta.com, the fly delta app, our email channels or paid channels, our social channels, in flight entertainment and free Wi-Fi, but really to be successful, we established this experience center of excellence, and they are charged with really designing this blueprint, ensuring that every piece fits together nicely, and acts as like catalyst for change and fosters that collaboration across marketing, digital, IT, loyalty, and even our service teams. And I want to clarify what this team does, we don't own the channels themselves, but more so supports and enables the activation across all the channels. Providing tools, guidelines and governance, and each team in division that we work with are, like individual islands on their own. They have their own set of cultures, their own set of tools, their own metrics, and the challenge for us that we're taking on is, we're building bridges to these islands. And not only just technology but bridging together a shared mindset with shared objectives. And so that doesn't necessarily mean abandoning specialization or even the tools outside of Adobe, but really finding creative solutions to integrate and moving away from my channel to our customer.

It's funny that you say that because if I look at my day-to-day life inside of Adobe. You might think like, it's one happy family. Of course, we are one happy family, but still, we have specialists that speak about the inbound and outbound channel through email and push and SMS, and we have people that look at junior analysts, and we have people that look at customer data. And what we found there as well, and I spoke about Conway's law earlier.

Imagine for a moment, you need to swim across a river, and there's a current. And you need to get to another site. You're going to offset in the direction that you're swimming to balance off that current. And what I work with our teams inside of Adobe is the same that you're doing in your center of excellence. The teams that you work with is the most natural that you're engaged with. You have to spend more time to engage with other teams to make sure those, let's say, I wouldn't call them silos, but as little individual, let's say barriers, you cross them. And that's, I think what you're doing with the-- Yeah, your center of excellence as well. But when you then look, making choices, for example, what use case to approach? Where do I start? What do I do next? How do those choices get initiated and made? And let's look at those, for example, in the context of use cases. Yeah, so when we are looking at prioritizing use cases at Delta, I'd like to think of it similar. And maybe I'm going to use your cooking analogy from earlier, really navigating a cookbook where you're not exactly the master chef. And, if you know me or, can imagine me in the kitchen, which let's be honest, happens quite seldomly, and it's really only to burn toast by the way. I'm really just so maybe just take a step back for a second. What I would do, right, is I would flip through this cookbook. I'd look for something to make and I'd stumble upon an awesome dish that looks absolutely delicious, but it requires 20 different ingredients that maybe my local grocery store doesn't have. And so I keep flipping, I find another recipe that looks more doable, but it requires a couple of items that I don't have on hand and just like finding a use case that looks promising but realizing you don't have the data to execute it.

But then there's a recipe with an ingredient that I can't really pronounce like Gnocchi. Is that the right way to say that? What even is Gnocchi.

What do you-- Excuse me. Similar to stumbling on a challenge or a dataset completely foreign to our capabilities. But eventually, I find that perfect recipe. I have all the ingredients, the instructions are clear. It doesn't require fancy equipment, and maybe I don't need my spouse to help me.

And it's like finding that use case that fits perfectly with your current data availability, your team's capabilities, the resources, and something that we're confident that we can deliver on. And so the same way at Delta, we prioritize use cases by assessing what we have, what we need, and what we realistically want to achieve in a given time frame as well as understanding that potential impact. Sure we have our eye on that fancy meal or that transformative use case, but that will significantly shift how we operate and engage with customers, but really understanding what can we handle now? And then building on our skills and progressively tackling more complex use cases as time goes on. So while we aspire to make that gourmet meal, we start with what's achievable yet impactful, ensuring that each dish that we make brings us closer to that five-star dining experience that is customer engagement and customer satisfaction.

So on the ingredients side, I can imagine in Delta, you have a wealth of information about people. Trips that they book, luggage that they lose, complaints that they file or travel that they're looking to make. So there's tons of data. And I think everyone in this room probably took a flight to get here we travel all the time, and we know that the most important thing that we want to know is getting recognized for the loyalty that we have to a brand. But if you go back to the data, what are the things that you're trying to do beyond gathering that data? What are the top-of-mind things that you want to unlock? So I just want to set the stage and say that Delta is almost a hundred-year-old company. And so in that time, we've built a number of systems, a number of platforms, and a lot of data sit in those platforms that have information about what a customer interaction is, and it's very siloed to the side of the business that it's on. And so it's fragmented. And so just like a jigsaw puzzle that's spread out over a hundreds of different tables. It's all over the place. And so the same is true for our data and how it started for us as we started to really embark on this journey where the data sits in different systems, maybe the same data in one system is in a different format in another system. And so really, what we're starting to embark on is creating that one source of truth. It's not just about collecting the data, but organizing it, understanding it, and really making it actionable. So a true customer profile where every customer preference, interaction and transaction is captured and as well as it's updated in real time. And it's not just about having this data repository, but it's-- It will become the backbone of how you will transact with Delta in the future. And then the added bonus of just being able to use it for things like personalizations going forward in the future. And with this data, we want to really transform our approach from reactive to proactive and kind of what you were going into a little bit earlier in your presentation, but really shifting from responding to customer actions after they happen to anticipate needs before they ask. And so it'll will really help us reduce that friction and frustration of navigating the maze of options that an airline or a company may offer to a customer. So can you give an example of what, let's say, that change in how you work with data will allow you to open up in future what it means to a customer compared to what you do today or cannot do today? Yeah, so I'll just throw out at an example, maybe, many of you can relate to of when you encounter what we call an eye oper in a regular operation, where your flight gets canceled. And so it's extremely frustrating. And if you're at the airport and your flight gets canceled, your first instinct, you're already in a stressful environment. You want to pick up the phone and call our call center and a reservation systems or you're calling our call center and you're standing in line at the help desk at the airport as well. And if you're savvy enough, you're also hitting us up on Twitter, you know about our live chat capabilities. And so you're hitting us up on all of these different channels at all of which is just as time goes by is making you more and more nervous. And so what if in a scenario, when flight gets canceled, we are presenting you with options automatically digitally and seamlessly of the same information that a call center agent would have that you have at your fingertips, and that's what we're really trying to move towards.

I really look forward to that. One of the things that is dreading for me is, like, going on a flight, especially long haul, missing my connection and figuring out how do I get to this customer meeting? Because let's say spending time in Vegas is fun. At the same time, also want to spend time with family. But let's switch for a moment because we've spoken about, let's say, data and execution. How do you define KPIs around this that help, let's say, guide your team on taking decisions? Yeah, so setting enterprise goals at Delta, what we have is what we call our flight plan. And it's a comprehensive framework that we put out every year that aligns our yearly objectives that are based on our previous years' achievements and lessons learned. And so our flight plan has key areas that are vital to our continued success into our growth, which is inclusive of safety, innovation, revenue, cost efficiency and operational efficiencies as well as customer loyalty. And so going back to our center of excellence for a second that really supports the enterprise. We recognize that we have an opportunity to support every facet of the business. So our COE underpins the realization of marketing, loyalty, digital, and our servicing KPIs, and we aren't really looking at the isolated metrics, but really it's ensuring that each interaction whether it's delta.com, the fly Delta app, in flight, Wi-Fi isn't about the transaction, but more so looking at opportunities to deepen that loyalty and satisfaction. And specifically, really aiming for tangible improvements and targeting specific percentage growth and year over year metrics. But it's a little bit more than just the numbers. It's about creating a capability that's cohesive and enriched with customer data and reflecting on positively on our KPIs and enhancing our digital touch points that impact our operational efficiency, our customer satisfaction scores, which really influences loyalty and ultimately leads to revenue retention and customer retention.

So in the end, it's putting those business calls in the-- Let's say, the use cases that you choose, the KPIs that you define. And as a result, the campaigns, and activities that you implement. So talking about implementation there, probably their customers or peers like you in the room that are currently on its way. They're starting to implement or they're looking to implement. Can you give, let's say, a couple of patterns or anti-patterns to be on lookout for to either go down or to avoid. Yeah. So I can certainly share about that. We're on year two of our Adobe Experience Platform journey. And through our rollout, our key learnings have been really deeply rooted in the symbiotic relationship between people process and technologies.

And first and foremost, I will say, organizational readiness is critical, and it really can't be under looked. It's not about having the right tools, but also ensuring that the organization understands and is aligned on the vision itself and so this means having access to comprehensive training and sharing the art of the possible. And importantly, just getting your executives by end as you put up on the slide there a couple minutes ago.

And so it's also having a level of change management within the organization and making sure that you have the right change champions, not just within the center of excellence that I spoke about, but in every part of the organization that really wants to evangelize the features and capabilities. But really getting into the root of your question, the importance of subject matter expertise as well just can't be overlooked. And so while APIs are very powerful tool, the true strength of it can really only be unlocked by knowledgeable hands. And so we learned very early on that partnering with the right experts externally, and then building talent internally is very crucial. It's like buying a new aircraft configuration with different gears and switches and layouts, but none of our existing pilots know how to operate it. And so at Delta, we thought we were ready. We had the drive. We had the executive buy in. We had the projected impact. We had bought the technology. We're building our one source of truth. And so we thought we could figure out people and processes after the fact. And so as we were deploying AEP, we realized that a lot of our emphasis were on our external partners. But once they rolled off, we were really going to face a major slowdown, and this is a major red flag for us as we started to put a road map together. So we paused, reassess our rollout strategy and really focused on creating an internal process with existing and new teams and making those resources that I was mentioning more accessible for enablement in education, and to really just ensure that we were fully prepared, and this is where our enterprise COE was born. And this pivot was super critical to realign and reset our expectations and ensuring that we're building on solid ground and not wasting momentum. So my advice to you all is-- And if you're in a similar situation is, don't be afraid to pause, reflect and raise the red flag and be willing to pivot. The path to value realization is very rarely linear. And so with the right people, process, and technology, we'll be set up for success. So knowledge. Yeah. As you mentioned, the skill to fly a particular aircraft. Both pilots are licensed for a particular aircraft. How do you share? How do you basically distribute the knowledge in your organization, cross enablement, cross training, is that coffee corner work or how do you do that? Cross enablement is big, especially within Delta, and we learned that the hard way. And it's the cornerstone of our digital transformation journey and strategy, and a key part of it is the WIIFM, what's in it for me. And it goes so much more beyond just the tangible benefits of communicating how it's going to impact the enterprise. But really start to look at what does success look like to the individual teams? How is it going to impact their daily work and their outcomes? And so we learn-- We leverage a plethora of resources in the process as well, such as Adobe Professional services, Adobe Learning services, Adobe technical support to really provide our teams with the knowledge and skills needed for that transition but it's not really stopping there. Education is really only effective if it's ongoing. So which that led to the rollout of our enablement sessions and our plans for our lunch and learns and casting call for upscale opportunities across the enterprise and really that creates a space to where we can learn from our mistakes, share our successes, and start to really align on the achievements and what that does is really start to nurture a community of champions that play a really crucial role in adoption and enthusiasm for the product.

So that sounds quite a lot of, let's say, energy that is going into the organization. I can only imagine that. There're ups and downs, how has your organization changed in the way they work before today and maybe towards the future? Yeah, so our ways of working have significantly undergone a transformation in itself, and that as well as an ongoing journey, adapting new technologies and strategies, particularly through our implementation of AEP is not only been about changing tools, but evolving our mindset, evolving our organizational culture. Previously our cross organizational collaboration was reserved for those one-off enterprise initiatives that maybe happened a couple of times a year. And today, it's becoming a part of our day-to-day operations. And this is our new normal where we're trying to work across the aisle and continuously reshaping our approach and really embracing a culture of openness and transparency is really key to that, where you can have teams to share with one another in a safe space of what's working, what's not working, and that's really critical for experimentation where failures themselves are not setbacks, but they're stepping stones to innovation. So you touched upon scale for a moment. And when we discussed, let's say, this session. And by the way, summer preparations already start way back, I think October, November is when we start to put things in shape. How do you think about scale? You show, let's say, the different department, teams, groups, and operations that you have in Delta? How do you scale, basically, this practice this technology across all of the various groups. Yeah, so our strategy for really scaling Adobe Experience Platform and the use cases that we have is really, it resembles that true MVP approach. So mirroring that philosophy where we're talking about tackling on a new recipe. And just, like, I probably wouldn't try to make a gourmet five course meal on my first try. We don't aim to overhaul our entire digital experience in one go. And instead, we want to focus on quick wins, smaller, more manageable projects that deliver quick value, but can also scale effectively. So by focusing on MVP, we can really trial and refine our approach in a controlled and measurable fashion that really allows us to know what works best for our customers and for our business. And that's what ultimately brings confidence in the products as well. And sometimes those are things that you may already be doing outside of AEP in the singular channels start to look at ways to maybe copy that success and learn by doing. Great. So I'm a product guy. I've been working on this domain for almost the past now seven years. And one thing that I asked customers all the time is if Christmas would come early, what would be your wish list to put under the Christmas tree? It's a loaded question. There's a lot of things I could ask for. But if you're asking, and if you're willing to commit to delivery, and I could really only pick one thing, it would probably come down to the simplicity and efficiency. So really kind of going back and embodying that one click mindset and approach. And when I say one click, it's not really literally one click, but it's reducing the unnecessary complexity and embracing a more intuitive approach and removing those redundant steps that happen within the platform. So it goes beyond just having even just our own internal processes in place. But how do we also use automation, reusability and workflow management within the platform that really starts to help us create new use cases or expand on existing ones that starts to really make us feel like it's effortless, and we wouldn't need to have to start from scratch every single time, instead building upon preexisting structures that we've spent so much time and investment in. That's really going to get us to that agility and speed that we're craving. And so if Adobe could enhance this and make it seamless integration as well with other Adobe product tools, and streamline that, that would foster a much more and a higher product adoption rate and enabling for our teams. So it's definitely direction that we're thinking, I would say, once we wrap up stay here for a moment because I've got two things that I quickly want to show you with that's maybe on the path that you're thinking. But before we go there, what's next for you and your team? Yeah, so looking ahead, we're really setting our sights on creating a more integrated and predictive and seamless travel experience. And as I mentioned earlier, we can start to anticipate some of our passengers needs before they arise. So our journey ahead involves experimenting safely with machine learning and artificial intelligence to really sift through the petabytes of data that we have and derive the actionable next best actions for our customers and making those interactions with Delta more than just a transaction, but a relationship. And so similarly, I want to also share our focus on suppression that you were talking about earlier as well, equally, and it's if not more important than the initial communication itself. And in an age of information overload and the constant push notifications that you're-- I'm sure all of you are familiar with. It's also being respectful of our customers attention as well. And by intelligently managing that and when to not engage our customers, we can foster that relationship of trust and respect. And in essence, we start to push the boundaries on what the airline industry can do, and we define the standards of customer experience.

Thank you, Shayan, for sharing. Let's say, you candid feedback experiences of your two-year journey. I will give a quick glimpse on what might help in this domain. Yeah, we launched in the product recently use case playbooks. Yeah, I've been talking a lot about use cases and having at least a central conversation piece industry based, use case based that helps to bridge the conversation between technology teams, data teams built into the products. And this is just barely scratching the service to basically help you to get what to what you call the one click. The other one and, yeah, sorry. I cannot leave it out. You saw this on main stage is AI assistance in Experience Platform. It's a unique opportunity because who of you was reading documentation. Like, I have a problem. I want to have an answer right now, and I'm not going to read tons of your pages on Experience League. Yes, you should, but no, you don't. And AI assistant, you can ask the questions, and it knows both about the technology, the domain, as well as the delta specific setup in the system. So it will over time, and we just, let's say, completed the alpha. We're moving into a beta phase, and it helps you navigate your data. It helps you expand the product mastery that knowledge about what is happening as well as streamline routine operations. Thank you very much for attending your first breakout session at Summit. I know you have many more on the schedule. Thank you for spending the time with you. We'll be here for a couple of minutes, and otherwise, follow up with us online. And have a good Summit. Thank you.

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