LAS VEGAS—An unlikely exhibitor touched down at CES 2025 in an unusual spot: Delta Air Lines took over the Sphere for its keynote here Tuesday evening.
In a multimedia-amped presentation featuring a cast of celebrity guests that evoked Microsoft’s CES keynotes of years ago, Delta CEO Ed Bastian announced a set of tech initiatives for the Atlanta-based carrier.
In keeping with much of the news at CES this year, they started with generative AI: Delta Concierge, what Bastian called “a gen AI-powered personal assistant,” will offer travel help to passengers in the Fly Delta app and other Delta digital channels.
Delta Concierge (Credit: Delta Air Lines)
A series of videos showed the concierge coaching a woman through a business-class trip to Tokyo. It started with an offer to book her ride to the airport on an eVTOL air taxi from Joby, a startup that Delta has invested in, continued with reminders about touchless TSA security options and Delta lounge access provided through her smart glasses before her departure, and concluded with arranging an Uber to her hotel and reporting her mileage earnings on the flight.
Not all of these things will land in Delta’s app right away, though. And Delta might not want to rush to deploy too many AI features anyway, considering such past airline-AI mishaps as a Canadian court requiring Air Canada to honor a fare-reimbursement promise that its support chatbot offered after citing a nonexistent policy.
Passengers hoping for a speedy electric air-taxi ride to a Delta flight out of LAX should also be patient. Delta is not the only airline to pin its hopes on eVTOL aircraft to streamline airport rides. United Airlines has invested in another company in that field, Archer Aviation, but these startups have steep technological and regulatory hills to climb.
(Credit: Delta Air Lines)
On that Tokyo traveler’s flight and much shorter flights, the seatback screens that Delta has on more planes than any other US carrier will get additional enhancements. “We have over 165,000 screens flying each and every day,” Bastian said. “That’s a heck of a movie chain.”
He announced a YouTube partnership that will bring a “curated” set of ad-free YouTube videos to those displays and passengers’ own devices via Delta’s Wi-Fi for SkyMiles members (who already get free Wi-Fi).
The airline’s press release announcing the YouTube partnership listed other improvements coming to the seatback entertainment that Delta has emphasized more than other US carriers: 4K HDR QLED screens (Delta told me Wednesday morning that they’ll be in all cabins, not just Delta One business class), Bluetooth audio, and personalization and customization options that passengers can save via their SkyMiles accounts.
Bastian announced another content collaboration during the keynote that may have been more directly relevant to the keynote’s locale: the sports-betting service DraftKings. “From fantasy sports to online adventures, gaming has become a regular part of the daily lives of millions of our customers,” he said. “And you shouldn’t have to hit pause just because you’re in the sky.”
But he didn’t say if that meant Delta passengers would be placing sports bets on seatback screens. Delta spokeswoman Vanessa Sherrill didn’t provide further details, writing Wednesday that “We’ll share more details about the DraftKings partnership soon.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also joined Bastian onstage—part of a parade of guests that included an introduction by actress Viola Davis and former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady talking up the “Well Traveled” wellness video series he’s doing with Delta—to announce a third Delta partnership.
The Sphere’s 4D multimedia allowed for elevated keynote production values. (Credit: Delta Air Lines)
This arrangement will see Uber customers earn SkyMiles on $40-plus Uber Eats purchases and rides to and from airports, with double miles for upscale Uber rides and triple miles on booked-in-advance Reserve rides. Khosrowshahi called this deal “exclusive,” but Uber passengers will not get kicked out of cars if they tell Uber drivers that they’re flying another airline and will still earn SkyMiles on those rides.
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(If this sounds like Delta’s current mileage-earning deal with Lyft, it should; that partnership ends after April 7.)
The keynote took advantage of the Sphere’s 4D multimedia wizardry during Khosrowshahi’s spot: After the Uber CEO said he’d ordered two coffees for him and Bastian, an Uber Eats driver rolled up on a moped (not battery-electric but gas powered, to judge from its sound) to deliver the caffeinated treats–and the scent of a hazelnut latte wafted into the stands.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (Credit: Delta Air Lines)
Following further tangents that covered Delta’s efforts to make air travel more efficient and sustainable via new partnerships with Airbus, Bastian closed the keynote with an ode to travel’s ability to connect people that may not have gone over so well with all the virtual-reality headset manufacturers exhibiting at CES.
“We don’t live in the virtual world,” he said. “True connection comes when we’re standing together, sharing the same space.”
A video presentation of fireworks then burst over a projection of downtown Los Angeles, which had in-seat subwoofers rumbling and the smell of fireworks blowing into the stands before Lenny Kravitz appeared on the Sphere’s stage. Of course, he ended the brief set with “Fly Away.”
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About Rob Pegoraro
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