Etihad Airways And Astra Tech Sign Agreements, Customers Can Order Tickets Using AI In The BOTIM Application

Etihad Airways, has signed an agreement with technology company Astra Tech. (photo: dock. Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Etihad Airways, the Abu Dhabi state-owned airline, signed an agreement with technology company Astra Tech on Tuesday May 3 to allow customers to book flights using artificial intelligence within the BoTIM chat application.

BOTIM has been relaunching as an "ultra app" on Monday 1 May and one of its services is a generating pre-trained transformer (GPT), an AI technology that has been very popular since its launch by OpenAI, ChatGPT, in November last year.

Through an agreement between Etihad and Astra Tech, airline clients can order flights by simply typing the basic details of the services they need, with the technology completing the order itself. GPT Astra Tech is claimed to be the first to work in Arabic. This technology is also available in English.

"With the BoTIM GPT module developed by Astra Tech, flights and other travel services integrated into the Botim app, it offers a convenient and innovative way for customers to order Etihad flights," Astra Tech said.

Astra Tech bought BOTIM last year at undisclosed prices from around 12 investors. Sheikh Abdullah Abu Sheikh, founder of Astra Tech and CEO of BOTIM, said that BOTIM is one of the top three digital remittance providers in the United Arab Emirates, in addition to other services provided by the app.

Sheikh Abdullah is Astra Tech's main shareholder and said one of the major investors was Abu Dhabi's artificial intelligence company G42, chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the state president's brother and national security adviser of the UAE, who oversees the vast business empire.

"We also have several other strategic investors that we will announce as soon as possible," Sheikh said, adding that they include "strategic" institutions from the region as well as one or two international institutions.