Delta CEO Ed Bastian Says He Rejected AI-Generated Draft and Wrote Emory Commencement Speech by Hand

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told Emory University graduates on Monday that he had asked artificial intelligence to prepare his commencement address but discarded the result because it lacked soul and warmth. Bastian, 68, said he was amazed at how quick and easy the AI-generated draft was to produce. "But I also noticed the lack of soul nor warmth it conveyed," he told the audience.

"It was not my personal voice, and it did not express my genuine appreciation for the opportunity to impart my insights to thousands of you. " The chief executive threw away the AI draft and wrote the speech himself by hand with pencil and paper. "So don’t worry, I threw it away and took pencil to paper," Bastian said, drawing applause from the crowd.

Bastian, who is CEO of the carrier with a market capitalization north of $45 billion, used the speech to stress the importance of personal authenticity. "The most important asset that you have is your good name. It’s your brand.

It’s what you stand for. And there’s only one person that can take that away from you. That person is you," he said. He told the graduates that character is revealed in difficult times rather than easy ones.

"Character isn’t revealed when life is easy. Character is revealed when times and decisions are hard. Many times, doing the right thing comes at a cost. But I always prefer to think of it as an investment, a smart investment," Bastian said.

Bastian said he has had many important decisions to make over the course of his career and that taking a shortcut or pushing the easy button can be tempting but never yields an enduring result. He began his career as an auditor at Price Waterhouse, now PwC, before working at PepsiCo.