Manila, Philippines – Cebu Pacific is deepening its enterprise AI strategy through a partnership with Thinking Machines Data Science and OpenAI, according to the airline. Thinking Machines Data Science is an official Advanced and Services Partner for OpenAI in the Asia Pacific region, giving the carrier direct access to OpenAI’s technology stack alongside regional implementation support.
The collaboration centres on moving Cebu Pacific beyond isolated AI pilots and towards redesigned workflows, the airline says. Governance and evaluation were calibrated to the risk of each workflow, while OpenAI’s technology was applied through ChatGPT Enterprise across several business units.
Leaders and business teams were brought together under the partnership to prioritise high-value workflows and test solutions under real operating conditions. Hands-on co-creation with Thinking Machines Data Science was intended to build internal ownership of the tools, rather than treating adoption as a top-down rollout, according to Cebu Pacific.
The airline credits the pace of that adoption to how quickly Thinking Machines Data Science was able to translate interest in OpenAI’s technology into active use across departments. That approach, Cebu Pacific says, allowed it to demonstrate value quickly and build the evidence needed for further investment.
Since the roll-out, several departments have reported measurable impact. Cebu Pacific says legal contract review time fell from an average of 2.5 hours to around 1.2 hours, project intake and triage turnaround dropped from five days to roughly one day, and engineering reference searches fell from 10–15 minutes to under 10 seconds.
Following the programme, 86% of surveyed users said AI now supports more than one-third of their daily work, according to the airline.
“At Cebu Pacific, we see AI as a practical way to make every customer’s journey simpler and our operations more reliable. It helps our people solve problems faster, make better decisions, and focus on higher-value work. Working with OpenAI technology and Thinking Machines, we are turning experimentation into real workflows that create value for our people and customers,” said Fabricio Ibáñez, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Cebu Pacific.
Ibáñez also credited the pace of adoption to the partnership with Thinking Machines Data Science. “What impressed me was how quickly Thinking Machines Data Science turned broad interest in AI into real momentum across the business,” he said.
“They were able to activate the business and create excitement across the organisation. For a company that puts its customers at the centre of its operations, AI helps Cebu Pacific work smarter by taking friction out of everyday processes, reducing manual work, speeding up processes, and enabling our teams to make better decisions. Our partnership with Thinking Machines Data helps make our operations more efficient, so our people can focus on delivering a better experience for our passengers,” Ibáñez added.
Cebu Pacific now plans to expand ChatGPT-enabled work across further teams, according to the airline. It also intends to develop new solutions using OpenAI’s application programming interfaces.
Strengthening internal change support is another priority, alongside pursuing agentic AI applications that connect directly with enterprise data and systems. Cebu Pacific says these investments are intended to improve both employee and customer experiences while creating lasting operational value.
