BCG – AI-First Companies Win the Future, Sep 2025

The document focuses on how companies, particularly airlines, can become 'AI-first' and leverage artificial intelligence for transformation and competitive advantage.

Key findings include AI's potential to significantly enhance airline cost and profitability, the challenges airlines face such as volatile demand and high customer expectations, and how generative AI and digital innovators are already changing booking and distribution processes. Rapid adaptation to an AI-first approach can provide a sustainable margin advantage of 5–6%. Progress in the AI-first approach involves three maturity horizons: deployment, rethinking, and invention.