AirHelp Launches the World’s First AI-Powered Lawyer to Fight for Faster Flight Delay Compensation Claims
21 March 2017NEW YORK (March 21, 2017) – AirHelp, a Y Combinator-backed air passenger rights company, has today unveiled a breakthrough in legal technology with the launch of Herman, the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) powered lawyer in the flight delay compensation industry.
Designed and built specifically to help process claims for flight disruption compensation as quickly as possible, Herman has the potential to revolutionize the legal claims process by making it more accessible and cost effective for the consumer.
Herman has been developed over the past four years by AirHelp’s global legal team and technology engineers, and has been fed with experience from thousands of court proceedings in almost 30 jurisdictions. When a claim is submitted into the system, Herman’s artificial brain feeds through the relevant details such as operating airline, departure airport, arrival airport and passenger country to suggest the best options for legal action, removing any possibility of human error.
The process for claiming flight disruption compensation is complex. There are multiple rules and factors to consider before taking court action for a passenger; such as the departure and arrival airports of the booked flights, the date of the disruption and the terms and conditions of the operating airline. If done manually, this can be a lengthy process, taking up to twenty minutes per claim depending on its complexity. Using Herman will reduce this time and significantly cut costs of the legal service, making it more affordable for those who would have otherwise had to forgo taking legal action.
With so many factors to consider, it is not surprising that only two percent of the eight million passengers entitled to flight disruption compensation will file for the reimbursement they deserve, resulting in almost $2.5 billion being left untouched each year. The development of Herman is part of AirHelp’s mission to make the process for filing compensation more simple and cost effective, meaning less time and hassle for the consumer.
“As a business, we cannot change the regulatory rules and laws that govern flight delay compensation, but we are determined to make the process smoother, faster and fairer for consumers. Herman is an industry first, using AI in a way that will transform the speed of processing claims, and hopefully encourage more consumers to claim what is rightfully theirs,” AirHelp’s Chief Legal Officer Christian Nielsen said.
Testing of Herman on 35,000 claims revealed that the AI-powered lawyer could identify a jurisdiction in less than a second. It can even run more complex bookings with several flight segments and it has a worldwide database of airline headquarters and branches.
At present, Herman is solely being used to enhance the flight disruption compensation process, but the company has plans to further enhance the software behind the technology in a bid to continue their support for consumers facing additional legal disputes.
“The legal profession is being transformed by the use of artificial intelligence, with the integration of bots streamlining the legal process, and allowing legal teams to focus on more technical work. By developing innovations like Herman, AirHelp is at the cutting edge of this technology, creating a service that will make the flight compensation process much simpler for the everyday consumer,” Nielsen added.
“At AirHelp, we are dedicated to empowering consumers and have developed Herman to do exactly that. In the US, there are a number of people that cannot afford legal services, and this is something as a business we want to change. While our commitment to helping customers gain the flight compensation they are entitled to will never change, Herman may open new doors for us to help consumers in conflict with other businesses or authorities, providing an affordable means for consumers to gain the legal assistance that they inherently deserve,” Nielsen concluded.
