Technovation with Peter High (CIO, CTO, CDO, CXO Interviews)
Jun 11, 2026 · 40 min · 14 segments
Southwest Airlines has spent the last several years modernizing one of the most complex operational environments in the world. In this episode of Technovation, Lauren Woods, EVP and CIO of Southwest…
Lauren WoodsGuest
Peter HighHost
We've used generative AI tools to help us build the machine learning tools faster, right? And so we've started to leverage and kind of marry the two, um, the upcoming, you know, new tech tools with generative AI and agentic AI and put those with the, the heavy-duty math, uh, work that we do with optimization machine learning.
Lauren is the Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Southwest Airlines, the nation's largest domestic airline by passenger volume.
Across her tenure, she's led many of the airline's critical modernization initiatives, and she and her team have also accelerated the integration of technology and operations across the airline.
She continues to shape the company's focus on resilience, efficiency, and customer experience.
Her team has also played a central role in several major business changes, including the rollout of assigned seating and new offerings like Getaways by Southwest, initiatives that require building new capabilities from the ground up.
I'm looking forward to speaking with Lauren about how Southwest is leveraging AI and data to improve operational efficiency, how the airline is balancing security and usability, and how technology is helping reshape the future of Southwest customer experience while preserving the company's people-first culture.
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We've used generative AI tools to help us build the machine learning tools faster, right? And so we've started to leverage and kind of marry the two, um, the upcoming, you know, new tech tools with generative AI and agentic AI and put those with the, the heavy-duty math, uh, work that we do with optimization machine learning.
Lauren is the Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Southwest Airlines, the nation's largest domestic airline by passenger volume.
Across her tenure, she's led many of the airline's critical modernization initiatives, and she and her team have also accelerated the integration of technology and operations across the airline.
She continues to shape the company's focus on resilience, efficiency, and customer experience.
Her team has also played a central role in several major business changes, including the rollout of assigned seating and new offerings like Getaways by Southwest, initiatives that require building new capabilities from the ground up.
I'm looking forward to speaking with Lauren about how Southwest is leveraging AI and data to improve operational efficiency, how the airline is balancing security and usability, and how technology is helping reshape the future of Southwest customer experience while preserving the company's people-first culture.
