Latest / UnDocked: The Maritime Transformation Show / What You Missed at Shipping UK and Demystifying AI in Maritime 2026
Transcript
- Nick Chubb: shipping needs to become more expensive. shipping goods become end products needs to become more than the kind of... 0.2 to 0.4 % of the cost of completed goods. Because it's not just this point about resilience, which I think is an important one, but also about how decarbonisation gets funded. Raal: Hello you, welcome to Undocked. Nick Chubb: I like you. Raal: Hi Nick Chubb. Nick Chubb: No, you changed the introduction, that caught me off guard. Raal: I thought I would. I'm to challenge the... I'm challenging the listener viewer this week. Nick Chubb: challenge in the convention. Raal: A very personal introduction. Just so they know I'm really talking to them. Yeah. Nick Chubb: that's nice. Raal: Yeah. Now, seeing as I've kicked things off, a rare moment. We were in the same city yesterday, but at completely other end. Nick Chubb: at different events. Raal: Yeah, different events. Other end. So, ladies and gentlemen, this week... think Nick and I probably just take you to the events we went to and tell you what you missed. How does that sound? Nick Chubb: Yeah, well, sounds good to me. Raal: Yeah good well I'm very keen to find out where you know what you was going on. Nick where were you? Nick Chubb: So I was at Shipping UK yesterday, which Raal: Mmm. Nick Chubb: is the UK Chamber of Shipping's biannual conference. Is that right? Every other year, biannual? I never remember which way around it is. Was that twice a Raal: Mmm. Nick Chubb: year? But it goes in the opposite year to London International Shipping Week. And I think there was a feeling four years ago that we needed, as a country, we needed some kind of convening forum to bring the great and the good. of the UK shipping industry together to talk about where UK PLC is going from a maritime perspective. And it was obviously this year very well timed because the last 12 months, the world has taken something of a turn in all sorts of ways, whether we're talking about geopolitics, whether we're talking about the net zero framework kind of collapsing about this time last year. My big takeaway from it overall from the day was that we are facing a kind of pretty unprecedented level of uncertainty as a global industry. And the very kind of UK centric view of that is sort of trying to work out what are the risks that face the UK as a country based on that. And then what are perhaps some of the interesting opportunities that might come out of that. So there were I think three kind of different size ship owners there, Denham's being, I think they've got four or five bulk carriers, and then MOL being at the other end of the scale, think, three or 400 ships, something like that. And everyone's kind of facing the same problem, but obviously facing it in slightly different ways, because the bigger you are, the more scale you have, the more you can put into experiments with things like ammonia and methanol and sort of almost be willing to take the hit to learn the lesson about whether it will work or not. Whereas the much smaller operators don't really have that luxury. And so there was quite a lot of quite interesting discussion about. what do the smaller operators do in the absence of a global regulatory framework? Raal: You talked about who was on stage and speaking and stuff, who was in the room? What kind of... Nick Chubb: It was primarily UK ship owners and ship managers and then the kind of UK maritime services and technology Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: suppliers. The usual suspects that you'd expect at a room like Raal: Yeah, Every integration RFP in shipping asks for a single source of truth. Almost no fleet actually wants one in practice. Why? Because as one operator told the team at Thetis, the moment you force everything into one platform, you risk sacrificing best in class functionality. The great integration, the new Thetis and GT Marine report, makes the case for something more achievable. A consistent view across the systems your teams already trust. Recommended reading for anyone running an integration RFP. Download it today. And were you speaking yourself or were doing? Nick Chubb: Yeah, I did a panel on digital ROI. So I'll come to that in a moment, but I just want to Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: briefly make a point about that. There were two keynotes through the day, and the second keynote came from Major General Paul Maynard, who is the Director of Strategy and Policy, Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff in the UK. And I bring it up because it was, well it was slightly unnerving and depressing. You know, the kind of main thrust of it is the UK is already in a kind of proxy war and that the regional conflicts that exist around the world at the moment are at a fairly high risk of spilling into global conflicts. And so, you know, how involved the UK ends up becoming in those remains to be seen, but the kind of overall message was that a war is coming. And the ask, I felt the ask coming from the Major General of Industry was, you know, near enough. You know, we need the support of industry, we need the expertise of industry, we need shipbuilding expertise, we need crewing expertise. you know, we need fleet operations expertise that may need to be called upon in a situation where the UK does end up in a hot war and at least needs to be known to exist, you know, from a kind of posturing standpoint to perhaps be able to prevent a hot war. And I kind of came out of that not wishing to... directly criticised the Major General because I think he's probably right, but criticising the overall government machinery here in the UK, feeling that you can't neglect the commercial shipping interest in the UK for 30, 40 years at a government level and then suddenly turn round and then ask for industry to coalesce around a national need. so, Raal: Boop. Nick Chubb: go on. Raal: Well, no, just to kind of, it's quite interesting hearing you say that because I can remember probably going back realistically four or five years where Nick Chubb: Okay. Raal: this kind of talk has been happening Nick Chubb: for a while. Raal: out of school, let's say. And Nick Chubb: Right. Yeah. Raal: not necessarily kind of taken that seriously, but military people across Europe who've been been talking about this. But coming back to your point, which is a very good one, which is like, it's almost like it's too late in many respects. we've Nick Chubb: horses bolted. Yeah. Raal: got a great conversation coming up. We've just recorded earlier this week, everybody, on robotics and AI and shipbuilding, which is gonna be really interesting, I think, Nick Chubb: Fascinating. Raal: for you all. We get into some of this discussion there about the fact that your infrastructure, the ability to run these assets and run them well and coordinate them, is a matter of national security. That doesn't just mean we can build naval ships, warships. It's also about the merchant marine, especially when you're on an island, by the way. And if you look at one of the things I've made the point to government officials when the Labour Party came in, they were at one of the events, I mean, the new minister. And I made the point to him about it is about getting involved with the shipping community. Because if you look at the Second World War, I think it's something crazy, like more merchant mariners were lost than the military ones. Because they were a target as a proportion, Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah, that's true. But as a proportion, yeah. Raal: because they were a target, because they were bringing in vital supplies and everything. So your point is a really good one. I honestly feel like that we have all been sleepwalking because it's not like we haven't seen some of these maneuvers. We haven't seen or paid attention. know, these things, these have not been happening in secret. It's almost been happening in plain sight. And I think all of us have just got so used to the post kind of Cold War world. of globalization and global trade and everybody, you know, being a bit kumbaya with some very notable exceptions who have kind of been the unfortunate people who have not enjoyed that kind of piece. And so I think we're all a bit guilty and politicians fundamentally, right, are there because people have put them there. And we have chosen people who are comforting and tell us nice things and don't kind of, you know, a guy in government saying to me, once, which has always stuck in my mind, says, we know exactly what to do, we just don't know how to get elected after saying it. So it's... Nick Chubb: I think that's a really good point is it definitely isn't an election winning strategy. Issues like shipbuilding, unless you're kind of an MP in Liverpool, for example, for the most of the population, maritime affairs, maritime issues are just not on the radar at all. there have been many senior defence officials over the last 12, 18 months who have been starting to flag up that the money isn't there to be able to defend the UK in the way that it needs to be. And squarely pointing the finger back at government. And I would say the response so far from government has been pretty non-committal. There is a kind of unfunded... commitment to get defence spending up to three and a half percent of GDP. But I think what you also have to consider, and it was only really kind of listening to this speech and in some of the conversations I had after, what you also have to consider is that it's not just about direct defence spending, it's about the kind of supportive mechanisms, industrial Raal: Exactly. Yes. Nick Chubb: mechanisms that exist around it that have been declining over the last 30, 40 years. Raal: Yes. Nick Chubb: And unfortunately, the only way to align commercial interests with UK defence interests is to cough up money. that's ultimately where the commercial interest will go, Raal: And both governments and private companies have been very, very reluctant to invest in just in case scenarios. I'm gonna build this just in case. I'm gonna put together, you know, just in case everything's, that's not the sort of thing that's flown in board and investment decisions and it hasn't, you know, and we've seen it. What we are seeing though now, and I think we're seeing evidence of this on a weekly basis, is the conversation moving from efficiency and cost savings to resilience. And resilience has been bandied around as kind of crew members for a while now, but when I'm talking about resilience now, I'm talking about like the resilience of your operations and stuff like that. But this is now the conversation. What do I need to actually put in place just in case I can no longer. use these trade routes or I can no longer access this port or whatever it might be. And this is very, very sensible business these days because there are things afoot that could completely change. And if you're not prepared for it and you're not in a good position to deal with it, you're going to be in trouble. And this is not new, Nick. We were talking about this with Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: people a year ago. This podcast is over a year old now. We were talking about like people doing scenario planning around this. And we talked about the advantage, you mentioned there around sort some of the big ship managers and so on, you know, being able to build bit more resilience in Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: because of their scale. And they may well have a big advantage and we may find that people are gonna struggle in smaller operations for this, for whether, you know, but all of shipping, all of it, the supply chain, the way that ship management is run, everything is on tiny, tiny margins. And we all have to get used to a world where that's going to change because if we want resilience and we want backup plans and we you know, we want to harden the things that need to be hardened to kind of to stay ultimately to stay safe and to keep being able to do trade, which is vital for safety in other ways and people's livelihood and everything. Yeah, I think the game has changed and I think it's only that people are just really waking up to it because it's very real, feels very real. Nick Chubb: I think it's important for everyone to recognise that shipping needs to become more expensive. shipping goods to become end products needs to become more than the kind of... 0.2 to 0.4 % of the cost of completed goods. Because it's not just this point about resilience, which I think is an important one, but also about how decarbonisation gets funded. Because I think that was one of the other really interesting aspects of the day. John Denham, who's currently the president of the International Chamber Shipping, Raal: Hmm. Nick Chubb: made a really good point around the net zero framework. I think there's probably a... And maybe to a certain extent rightly, but a view from across the industry that it is the Trump presidency that has stopped the net zero framework going through. And certainly that was certainly my view going into yesterday. But he actually raised that for the last 10 years, whoever was in the White House, the line from... people on the US side of the IMO has been, we will not allow us a tax to come in on global shipping. And so he made quite an interesting call for, if the net zero framework is something of a stick rather than a carrot, what are the things that the IMO could be doing? that might be a little bit more kind of flexible in terms of the approach that would be much more focused on the carrot that supports investment into decarbonisation rather than purely a stick because if it is seen as a tax, quote unquote global tax, then the chances of it getting through the IMO at any point with any administration in the US is almost nil. And I thought that was really interesting. Unfortunately, they then ended the panel. So I never got to hear what these sort of flexible carrots were. So I'm now putting a call out to anyone for ideas on what that could look like. Raal: What are the carrots? Nick Chubb: I did on a slightly brighter note. did I got to chair a panel on Raal: Yes. Nick Chubb: digital ROI, which was fascinating. there were three three speakers on the panel. had Jeremy Stevenson Barnes, who is the chief technology and information officer of V Group. He's also speaking at the DigitalShip Summit next week. we should try and sort of tap him up to come on the podcast at some point, because he's a really interesting character. come from outside the maritime industry. He's only been in the industry for about 18 months, two years. And so we were able to draw some really interesting parallels between what the wider kind of enterprise IT market looks like versus what the maritime IT market looks like. And actually, my big takeaway was particularly with the, you know, the... rise of Starlink over the last two years. Not the bank. We'll edit that. The rise of Starlink Raal: You're really on the political bent there, the rise of Stalin. I don't leave it in. Nick Chubb: that actually Maritime's not that different anymore. And you know, I think we always think in our industry that we're a bit special, we're a bit different, but actually that's not the case. We also had Sarah McCann, who's the senior solicitor. for external affairs at North Standard. So her job title probably doesn't do her justice. She actually looks at the whole technology portfolio that North Standard takes an interest in. things like decarbonisation technologies, efficiency technologies, autonomy technologies, and essentially looking at kind of what that does to the risk profile of a vessel, which I thought was really interesting. And then Gert Jan Panken, who's the VP for maritime energy at Inmarsat Viasat So kind of bringing that kind connectivity angle. And the whole point of the session was to look at how you actually generate return on investment from digital. So I was able to open with a few stats from our IT cost benchmarking club, which in the last 12 months, there's been a nearly 50 % jump in data automation and AI spending. across the fleet that we benchmark. And that's come from shaving other elements of the budget down ever so slightly. So sort of everywhere else has had a kind Raal: Yep. Nick Chubb: one or 2 % cut in their budget to facilitate this jump in investment in AI. The biggest fall was IT infrastructure. So things that the actual... computers and stations that people are using day to day, the network infrastructure and use on the vessel, that went from 12 % down to 9 % of the budget. But year on year, complaints about IT infrastructure went up eight times. So there's been a big jump in complaints of around. how quickly, how fast the computers are, how good the connection is on board the vessel, all of that sort of stuff. But actually that budget's been cut year on year. So Raal: That's interesting. Nick Chubb: I kind of had some information on the investments and then it sort of came down to the panel to talk about the returns. And they actually came up with, I can't take credit for it, I just wrote it down as they were saying it, they came up with a really nice framework for sort of thinking about how to create ROI. So in reverse order of difficulty, the first thing to think about is, is there an efficiency that we can gain? often the efficiency gets thought of as a cut to head count, as the first place people go. But actually... reducing friction that exists on the team, whether that's seafarers ashore or shore-based team members, finding something that gets in their way regularly and eliminating that is the quickest way to get to new efficiency and the easiest way to get a return on investment. Raal: I can see how it gets you to a return on investment. How do you prove it? Did they get anywhere around sort of removing that roadblocks thing? Because I think it's something we all recognize, but if you have to put a figure on it, how do you sort of do that? You know what I mean? Nick Chubb: Well, obviously, my hugely biased answer would be that you need to have some kind of benchmark measure in place year on year for this sort of stuff. Raal: Yeah. Yeah. Nick Chubb: But that is a biased answer. think Jeremy had some quite interesting insights on that, both in terms of... how you go out and get the money in the first place, sort of convincing the board to make the investment in the first place, and getting kind of the right stakeholders on board. But then to your point, yeah, how you build out the right kind of measurement to be able to. Yeah, justify that a return was had. A lot of these things, on the efficiency point, you should see various productivity metrics that again should be measured going in the right direction rather than the wrong. And you should see costs start to come down. But the big issue with shooting for efficiency is that you can only go from one. down to zero. And the returns, diminish over time. so Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: the second, go on. Raal: No, I just, I mean, because I spend a lot of time thinking about this, because obviously I spend a lot of time trying to convince people to do things. I think the problem is twofold. Sometimes, you know, sometimes these things are multifaceted. if you're not going to work on all of the things at the same time, you can maybe prove it's going to impact it. But it's like, you know, how much of that is then prevented by other things that you're not doing. You know what I mean? If that makes sense, you can, there's a lot Nick Chubb: Yeah, Yeah. Raal: of different things going on. Like training is a good one. You know, you, you, you invest in training, but if you don't have other things in place around sort of getting people's mindset. Nick Chubb: you Raal: in place behavioural when you're not working those channels, know, you're sort of, you're not necessarily going to get the impact that you want. But I think the bigger problem, and it's a big problem for us in shipping, is there's so many things that we don't currently measure. you know, we're very good at measuring some of the, you know, the big stuff, like accidents and incidents and fuel efficiency to those kind of things. But there's a hell of a lot of other things which we don't really, and most of those are around, like where you're talking about removing the roadblocks. Because I think there's a real, and it came up in the sessions that I was in yesterday, there's a real understanding now of technology potentially being a massive enabler to people and to improve the work that they're doing and the efficiency of the work that they're doing. And the badly implemented technology could actually have the reverse effect and you could be throwing technology at people who's actually slowing them down in lots of different ways. Nick Chubb: Yeah. This is why, coming back to that framework, so there's two other parts to that that came out of the panel. So the first is efficiency, relatively straightforward, although I take from what you're saying. Second is creating new value. can you... use the data, use the initiative, use the application, whatever it is, to effectively grow a business line or create an entirely new business line. And then the third is mitigating a risk. these, you know, efficiency is relatively easy, value is quite difficult, mitigating a risk in terms of measurement, measuring something didn't happen. When you look at justifying your cyber risk management investments, for example, or in the context of North Standard, investments in autonomous technology that may be improving or reducing the risk of collision, example, proving a negative is very, very difficult. But the most important thing that came out of that panel for me was that you need to make that decision upfront. So what is the value you're trying to create? What is the efficiency you're trying to drive for? Or what is the risk you're trying to mitigate? then have the discussion about how that's measured today, if at all, because the answer is probably it's not. Then you start to look at the tools that you're going to use to improve it and move the needle. And what almost always happens is the reverse. You see an interesting technology, like AI is the trend of 2026. You then think about... Well, I could use it to drive this efficiency, create this new value or mitigate this risk. And then after the fact, you're asking the questions about how do we measure it? And did it drive a return or not? Raal: very, very, very good point. And it came up in the discussions that I'll share with you as well that we had there. And I think that is exactly what's happened. And I think there are good reasons for why that's happened. And it starts really because boards were mandating the use of technology. But I can come back to that. I had an interesting, I chaired a panel yesterday, which was very, very much got into that. Yeah, interesting. Nick Chubb: Well, the other big discussion we had at that panel, which I don't want to dwell too much on because I know you're going to cover it, but was the question of are we in a bubble or not when it comes to AI and should we be investing in AI or not? And if we're going to how, one thing I will say is I did do a very quick show of hands asking how many people in the audience were using it day to day. Every hand went up. how many people felt personally that they were getting a return on the time and money invested in those tools. Pretty much every hand stayed up. And then how many people had a, how many organizations had a policy about AI in the organization? Most hands then stayed up. And then I asked how many people had actually read that policy and follow it. Quite a few went down at that point. So Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: this obviously still work to do on AI, but that was, as I understand it, that was your whole day yesterday, wasn't it? Raal: Yeah, so I was at the demystifying AI in maritime event, which was by Namarata Nadkarni's Intent Communications. They organized this event, bringing people together in London. So yeah, I was just in over in the city. And very interesting because I mean, AI has become a big part of the conversation, obviously, whenever there's, well, I think it's any maritime event these days, not just the technology kind of focus ones. This was a dedicated entire day to it. And you might sort of say, well, is there that much to kind of say? But I think the way the day was structured made a very big... bit of sense, you know, in terms of like the way that they, took everybody on a journey from sort of really kind of understanding the basics, the things that people may kind of think they know, but not a hundred percent clear on, and then sort of going, going through into, into, into real specifics around how it's used. And it was a really good mix of people there. I mean, on the stage, you had a lot of people, you might expect from shipping from P and I technology vendors. Also people from outside of maritime. So people from Google and from Uber giving their sort of perspectives. So it was a pretty big spread, some policy people as well, that kind of thing. And well, I don't know if it's my biggest takeaway, but something occurred to me that was quite interesting that was that AI is particularly interesting in that everybody is on the same journey. So whether you're a technology vendor, whether you're a P &I, whether you're in services to maritime, you're the owner, a manager, finance people, board exec, advisor, know, whatever your position in the maritime ecosystem, everyone is learning. Everybody is kind of figuring it Nick Chubb: Mm. Raal: out. And that's quite interesting because if you look at like the way that technology is sort of people who serve technology and maritime up until now, you know, it's the people who know the operations, have all the skills and the answers, and then the people sort of trying to kind of simplify those sort of problems and try to understand what the problems are. Now, I realize I'm oversimplifying because sometimes technology companies are started by people who've worked in the industry and I know there's gray lines between it, but it always feels a little bit like that, that you've got like the people who really know their business, people who really know technology and they're sort of coming together. Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: and trying to kind of, you I'll show you mine, you show me yours kind of bit. with Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah. Raal: the AI, it's A, it's moving all the time, and B, everybody's kind of finding their way through around using it. And so there was a nice feeling of sort of egalitarianism, And I think, you know, getting into perhaps more of the specifics around it. think there were a number of points that sort of bubbled to the surface, let's say. First one was probably that issue of trust is really becoming the kind of talked about thing. What do I mean by that? I mean that the conversation has kind of moved from say 2024, look at what AI can do, know, isn't it amazing? Blowing my mind. 2025. starting to look at like, how do we, how do we kind of use it? I think where we're coming to it towards the end of 2026 is, yeah, obviously it's good. Obviously it has all these potential and capabilities, but would you actually start to trust it to make decisions to actually, or make, make decisions firstly on what it's telling you. And then perhaps can we start to sort of release, you know, agents to start actually doing part of this and then. you know, where's that line going to be drawn and how quickly can we get to a point? Because a lot of the value is going to sort of come from that when we can actually start to use agentic AI and start to kind of get it to sort of do some of the operations there. So, you know, I think the level of trust with it, writing an email, yeah, fine, you know, can it analyze fuel consumption? I think that most people are probably quite happy with that kind of thing. Can we sort of, you know, could we get it to recommend when we do maintenance? Maybe we're less confident, you know. Then what Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: about, you know, getting it to execute a commercial or a safety critical kind of decision? And that's like, whoa, you know, no one's really feeling like they're there. So there's kind of, if you like, a bit of a trust ladder kind of Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: emerging and people are at different rungs of that ladder. I don't know if that's something that you're kind of seeing as well, yeah. Nick Chubb: Absolutely, yeah. We've just done some research. We published it last week with Marucra So they commissioned us a year ago, a little over a year ago, to look into AI adoption across the maritime industry. And this report that we just released was the kind of follow-up. And so we did a kind of year-on-year comparison. We did the same survey twice, just kind of see where people are at. And the big thing that came out of it is what we've called in the report the verification tax. And that is that the AI produces credible looking output, but what is required then is an expert to go in and verify that output to the point that the expert spends as much time verifying output as it would have taken if they'd have done the job themselves. And so as part of that research, actually split those verifications into two types. So the first is what we call kind of residual verification. essentially coming... uncertainty that comes out of how the either the UX is designed or how the workflows is designed that the kind of visibility into how the system reached the answer is poor and therefore you have to go and sort of manually check Raal: Yep. Nick Chubb: so that you know the user has to go and check it they don't trust the system they can't see how it got there they don't know sort of you know how the outcome is going to be owned so actually what we recommend is kind of build systems and build your workflows in a way that reduces that kind of residual verification so you know if Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: The output is a recommendation based on a set of charter party agreements that you have historically across the organization that... the output creates clickable citations going back to that kind charter party library. So it takes three minutes of going to click through those citations to check them rather than 25 minutes of going to kind of dig them all out and think, I think I remember where that one came from. Raal: Mm. Nick Chubb: little things that you can do like that with the actual, with the machine itself, if you see what I mean, that allows you to reduce the amount of verification you're doing. And then we have... warranted verification, which is just where the consequences of an error just make it justifiable to do a close review every time, whatever the circumstances. So contractual positions, port restrictions, sanction stuff, just keep those in place regardless. so What we hope is over time, those residual verifications will come down, those warranted verifications will stay in place and kind of reduce the risk, and the verification tax overall will get reduced because people spend less time checking out. But definitely, in the survey data, you can go and download the report from our website, in the survey data that came out, the trust problem is very real. Raal: Yeah, yeah. So I did, I did two panels as well, sort of back to back. The first of which was really asking, you know, getting into the details of where the value Nick Chubb: You must have been exhausted. I have to go and lie in a dark room for an hour after doing a panel. You've got stamina. Raal: Well, what can I say? I would take a very lounge lizard kind of approach to these things. let other people do the talking. But the first panel was looking at where specifically is value happening. So before that, they were sort of talking about concepts and stuff. And I got to pick it up with people who were actually kind of involved in this very, very interesting conversation. I had Peter Phillips from Maritime Passport on there. Dr. Amy Parks from, I got this wrong on the stage, so I'm going to get it right now. ArcSilly, Nick Chubb: you Raal: ArcSilly. And that's a consultancy that's looking very specifically Nick Chubb: Okay. Raal: at use of AI and particularly around fuel efficiency and that sort of stuff. Steve Whitby, who's someone we should have on the show, who's Wallim's vessel IT services, their de facto kind of CTO. Nick Chubb: CTO. Yeah. Raal: And he, again, not from Maritime, been in there, I think for a good few years, working with them, I think in post for a couple of years. And he had some very interesting views around expectations of what AI is going to do and compared to what it's actually for. And to that point, he was definitely a proponent that he doesn't see it as being the efficiencies to driving to lower headcount and things like that. It's all about Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: improving, you said, of unlocking new services and stuff like that. And he seems to feel that that's something that as an organization, they're very bought into, is refreshing to hear. And we had a guy called Dominic Simpson, who's the lead environmental sustainability lead for Fred Olsen Cruise Lines. Nick Chubb: Thank Raal: So it was very, very different people coming at it from lots of different angles. with Fred Olsen as an owner, Wollum as a ship manager. Marizan passport, a vendor to those and Amy Nick Chubb: Mm-hmm. Raal: obviously at AXALE working at that more consultant level on planning strategy and stuff. And the application is quite interesting from Fred Olson. You might be eyebrows raised about why the sort of environmental sustainability is not natural, necessarily fit for AI. They have a very novel use of AI in using cameras to detect food waste. So this is really allowing them to get a handle on what's going in the bin daily from a Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: food waste perspective. then obviously down the AI analysis of that, and then obviously downstream of that, they'll be looking at what interventions can be done to actually sort of minimise that because it has both cost implications, but also environmental implications when you're dealing with anything of that nature, know, garbage disposal and all that sort of stuff, environmentally on onboard ships. And I think the thing there is, you know, when you think about the scale of cruise ships, the amounts when it comes to talking about ROI, the amounts are potentially huge in terms of the savings that you can make. So that was kind of very interesting. think. Nick Chubb: to put that into context, a Royal Caribbean icon or oasis class ship will consume 60,000 eggs per week. Raal: Yeah, I mean Nick Chubb: That's wild. So I can definitely see it's such a strange thing to think about, but on a ship with 5,000 people on board, food waste Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: becomes a huge potential cost and environment saving. Raal: Yes, and I think there was obviously a lot of focus on potential opportunities. would say most of them were around the efficiencies and looking at them, which is why I was tuned Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: into what you were saying, because I do think we are quite weak at productivity measurements Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Raal: that we have. maybe one of the things that AI does is it demonstrates the savings on an individual level so much in terms of the way people interact with it, that maybe that's less of a, maybe that is more of a given. But I think when I started pushing for the kind of what's the ROI metrics that you're actually chasing Nick Chubb: Yeah. Yeah. Raal: there, it started to be a little bit trickier. And I think the other thing that came out of it was that the looking at the opportunities that are there, you've also got to be factoring in the risks associated with that too. And so, know, for example, Peter Maritime Passport, they're in the business of sort of, you know, looking at seafarer credentials and ID and credentials, so certificates and things like that. And he was explaining how much more fraudulent certification, how easy, how much easier it is in an AI world to make things look legitimate and to, you know, replace someone's photo on a certificate or a document and that kind of stuff, you know. So, you know, that is both a threat and as well as the opportunity on the other side of the ledger for things like this sort of validation checks and so on that he's doing. Steve was very keen to bring up as well how the threat from attacks that are enabled by AI from a cyber security perspective. I was kind of, Nick Chubb: Right. Raal: it's something you and I have talked about a lot, but I don't think people sort of realize how easy that those kind of labour saving attacks can be now and why we are seeing Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah. Raal: more and more of that kind of happening. And he quoted a number, I don't want to try and repeat it, but just like huge exponential amount of attacks that they've had to deal with and dealt with, I hasten to add. But Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah. Raal: you know, the number of attacks that they experienced and stuff like that. And some interesting drawbacks as well from both Amy and Dominic, who both saw one of the biggest issues or let's call it some disruptors in within this as being the kind of death of communication over communication because people can just generate so much content emails, all of that sort of stuff that they are seeing this kind of, you know, people switching off essentially from from communications. I think you talked about this. Nick Chubb: interesting. Raal: Months and months ago, we had a discussion about this and you were like, I think you kind of made that point that we're to have to become you know, much more discerning in terms of the content we create and how we kind of go about doing it. that was really interesting. Nick Chubb: Well, I just get my AI to read my emails now and just tell me. So there's loads of AI-generated emails coming in, but it all gets filtered by AI. Raal: Well, this came up, but this came up, but this came up in the course of the day that we are really in danger of like, you know, just because it can summarize an email for you is no reason to read the summary and not read the email or not read the articles and stuff like that, because you're relying on something's interpretation of it. And there was an interesting discussion that I sort of prompted from the floor a bit later on on this, where I was kind of explaining, you know, that thing we talked about a few weeks ago about sort of saying the problem with a lot of maritime, the data that we base a lot of stuff on in maritime, is this important Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah. Raal: context is not there. So what was behind the decisions to do what we were doing? And I picked up the discussion later with it was with a lady called Olivia Northrop from ABS. And Nick Chubb: Right. Raal: they have I'm going to get this wrong. I should have had a business card with me. I've got it somewhere. And a kind of a center of excellence that ABS have put together. There's Nick Chubb: Okay. Raal: actually very, very well resourced. So the point I was asking from the floor was about this context. And I was like, you know, if we've got data missing. I was making the point, you see, that anyone who works with an LLM, the more context you give it, the better the output, right? If you Nick Chubb: Mmm. Raal: start to kind of give it more and more of the context of what you're doing, the more it learns, the more it understands, the better it becomes. She made the very, very good counterpoint to that, which is that, well, if you just start loading it up with loads and loads of additional information, you may not actually get the results that you want, because what it's not able Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: to do is to rank that context in any way. you you would be very. And if you think about it, just to give everyone an example of where this is kind of interesting is imagine the meeting transcripts that get generated by AI now. Right. You could have six really informed intelligent people in the room and one idiot. An AI will not know from the transcript whose opinion actually counts for anything. The idiot could talk a lot and make a lot of facile stupid points. Nick Chubb: you Raal: If they say something wrong, someone will probably pick it up and the transcript will note. But if that person's just making facile stupid points... Nick Chubb: This is making me nervous about our podcast. It's not one idiot, it's two. And there's no one here to pick us up on it. Raal: Yeah, luckily, no one. Yeah, no. But the point being that, you know, if you don't then read that transcript and say, actually, you're putting way Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah, Raal: too much, you're putting way too much kind of emphasis on that. And if you imagine this kind of world that I've been painting a picture of for some weeks now where we get all this contextual additional text information, but there was no ranking or tagging or appreciation of which conversations were important. We could find ourselves in a world where the context actually distorts or the impression of the context based on this extra analog data, which we somehow kind of captured through various means, through scraping emails, through voice recordings and all that sort of stuff that we've talked about on occasion. So Nick Chubb: since. Raal: I thought that was really interesting because that is, I think it is a problem, but not necessarily best solved by just collecting everything, because as she pointed out as well, it would be hugely inefficient. So it's a kind of like, I guess the question it comes back to is that where is the value and what aren't we capturing today that is potentially holding back our ability to do more with the data that we have. Nick Chubb: But that point Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: around the idiot in the room, I hadn't really thought about, but that's such a good point. Raal: No, yeah, yeah, she didn't. She didn't know that she was far too pleasant to think of that. But that's how I started thinking about it after she said about the weighting of the context. the thing, but the discussion as well, that rolled into a second panel, which I do want to really talk about, because I think it's really a sweet spot for us on Nick Chubb: show. Raal: Undocked. And that was with joined by Amber Foster of a company called Human Superpowers and Dr. Elena Ali. That's how you say it. A company called AI oversight. And there we were asking a different question. We were saying, board is being asked to approve some of this spend on AI investment, but it doesn't potentially completely understand. And how does it know whether to say yes or no? That was the question we were posed. It became a broader discussion around what is the role of a board. and how should they be thinking about these kinds of things? And it was a fascinating chat. It wasn't anywhere near long enough. We only had about 20 minutes. But there were some really interesting points there. And I think that one of the kind of takeaways for me was like, of like, A, the whole kind of way that this has been talked about as a technology has kind of come about from the wrong end, you know, in the sense that. people on golf courses asking each other, you know, have you started rolling out massive cost savings from AI yet? You know, this kind of idea that this is, because it was posed Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Raal: as that from the beginning, I think, that there were huge savings and a gold mine to be had and all that sort of stuff. And so it sort of started from the wrong position and boards don't normally start there. You know, they would normally say, well, what's the problem that we're looking to solve? You know, therefore what are the approaches that we could take, the tools that we, you know, and exactly as you were saying earlier. you kind of have something that you're shooting for before you even begin to sort of start to decide on the tooling. And we've kind of come at that sort of the wrong angle. And I think there was a really interesting tension in the discussion with them, which was about like, you want the board when it comes to this kind of technology and what could we do, you want to inspire a better conversation, a more expansive conversation. because there's so much that this technology potentially enables. You want to have imaginative, creative discussion in the room around how could this completely transform our business? Whereas boards are very typically set up to be very conservative, very much driven by things that there's patterns in the past that you can rely on, and also from a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders and all that sort of stuff about being averse to risk and all of that sort of stuff. And they're being put in that position where they're also having to think about the value of the asset that they're looking after in a world that could be completely disrupted. And that was something that we talked about in the previous session and kind of rolled in, that you could be sat there saying, well, now it's not the right time for us to do this kind of thing and try and plan your strategy. But around you, people are being enabled to do things at incredible pace and Maritime Passport was good example of that because they've been, as a startup, appeared in an age which is AI first. So they've been Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: able to build software in a way that you can take advantage of agentic coding and Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah. Raal: all that sort of stuff. And the infrastructure is there versus incumbents who are sitting on huge code bases, vast amounts of data, business processes, all that sort of stuff, which isn't able to take advantage of some of those things in the same way. And so the game... you the board is sat there with a very difficult kind of set of questions to kind of deal with with on that. And I think that the other thing that came through in the, you know, to use an example, I guess, don't quite know how to position this, but like, is it the board's job to really understand the technology? Because actually, Nick Chubb: Mm. Raal: they don't need to understand how an engine works, for example, to decide whether buying, they should go and buy Nick Chubb: Yep. Raal: 50 trucks, you know, they don't need to get into that level of detail. And I think that's that That's that sort of maturation of the kind of conversations need to happen rather than obsessing necessarily with technology. But at the same time, the board needs to get into the detail to understand the risks of where data is being stored and the implications of that. it's trying to kind of strike that balance of how a board kind of can work effectively. And both of them work in this space. So I think there'd be, you know, very interesting guests to have on and to talk about that, because Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: we talk a lot about sort of entrepreneurs and startups and scale ups and &A activity. We don't tend to really focus on what's happening in the board conversation. But one thing that I really liked in the discussion that was unprompted, I hasten to add, was that the amount of transformation, people transformation that goes with a big sort of move that a company might be making as far as AI is concerned. And that that was a discussion that really needs to happen at the board is like, how do we do this? How do we do this from a people perspective? Now, in my experience, I might be being unkind, but typically the board don't gravitate to those kind of big people decisions. They know it's important. They'll put good leaders in who they can trust to take care of that. But it's not, it's not normally something that they're thinking about. They're much more data-driven. They're much more thinking about that. But when you think about the the people as the real fulcrum on whether this is going to be a success or not, and if it's going to, know, investment is going to pay off. A people first strategy that's discussed and approved at the Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: board is a really important part of it, which of course was music to my ears, as you can imagine. And that was followed up with, you know, so Amber was really talking about working with boards to kind of get that. And then Dr. Elena was talking from the point of view of actually what are the capabilities that you need to build in an organization to unlock the value and looking at that as a skills thing. So essentially I was like, I was in heaven with that discussion because it was all sort of, all in my sort of sweet spot and wheelhouse. But really interesting. I Nick Chubb: So Raal: think, like I said, I think it'd be, we didn't get time to dig into it. I think it would be fascinating to hear what they're kind of doing with that sort of. Nick Chubb: Yeah, definitely. I think it's something that gets overlooked. I think my kind of view on it is that it should be down to executive leadership to kind of set the appetite on AI, because they're ultimately the ones who are trying to set the direction of the organization. And also it's important to say... you can make a proactive choice to not be pursuing AI. Just because everyone else is doesn't necessarily mean that you should be. And certainly setting the appetite on where you do want to deploy AI and where you don't. And even the kind of red lines about where, whatever the benefits, where you definitely will not for reasons of morality, all that sort of stuff. I think that speaks to some of those big people decisions. Then I think the role of the board, should be to support those decisions, challenge those decisions. And then also the thing that gets overlooked massively is actually being able to accept responsibility for those decisions. As you mentioned of fiduciary duty, anyone who has a kind of legal direct responsibility for any organization that is trading with the EU now actually has a, because of the EU AI Act, has a legal responsibility to ensure that... the organisation as a whole has an understanding of how these tools work. And there are particular rules about how the tools that you might be delivering to EU citizens, how that interaction happens, and you have a legal responsibility for that, which can't be delegated. So Raal: Mm. Nick Chubb: I think they're definitely, if you're looking at your board overall, I think definitely one. does everyone on the board have that kind of baseline understanding of what their responsibilities are? But then two, are there people on the board that have enough knowledge, and they don't need to have, as you say, you don't need to know how the engine works, but they have enough knowledge to be able to support and challenge the decisions of executive leadership. And if you don't, Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: how are you going to expand that board to make sure that you do? I Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: think that's super important and I think massively overlooked. Raal: Yeah, I mean, the other thing to say as well is that it was kind of interesting in as one of the things I meant to mention in my sort of big, what were the big takeaways, cross cutting, cross cutting themes, that's how you say it, isn't it? One of the big cross cutting themes is a real confidence that AI won't replace people and B, that it's not something that people are trying to do, know, that it's not like Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah. Raal: talking about in the world, but they're not trying to do, you know, their organization is not coming at it from this point of view. Now, I really question that myself, certainly the level of confidence. And I do think that inevitably people are looking for savings, but I do think, I think that the, I think the conversation is maturing as people kind of understand where the limits are. Like you were talking about the verification and the warranty aspect a minute ago. And I think that is definitely sort of a really big part of it there. And I think that in shipping, it's a big theme because of the risks involved and all that sort of stuff. Now, I do think it's being tested because there are starting to emerge kind of agentic parts of it where I can see authority perhaps going to do certain. certain things, but I think it's that mission criticality of it, the risk Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: of it. And let's face it, a lot of what we do is very, very dependent on people, relationships, know, commercially, Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: and also on sort of teamwork and things like that. The individual is not always the pressure point in maritime, it's about how, you know, teams work together and that sort of stuff. So there was some really interesting, I say confidence around that. And I would say that that's growing, I think, as people are sort of getting more and more of a handle on it. But as I say, I do wonder whether it is a little bit misplaced because I think it's potentially assuming a lot of things stay as they are, you know, Nick Chubb: Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Raal: in terms of what the AIs are capable of and where the trust layers and all that sort of stuff. But I think that may come to be tested. But was really, really interesting. And then the other thing is just to kind of stay on the people dimension a little bit is the other big takeaway for me was there is that seafarers aren't waiting for shipping companies to get their AI strategy finished. They're already out there, you know. And there was a dedicated session on seafarers, which was good, as a lady called a mariner, a master mariner, Anne Plechka, think. Anne, you may have met before, Nick Chubb: She's brilliant. Yeah, yeah. Raal: Yeah. And there was a joined by Seafarer as well in there as well. And that was really kind of interesting listening to how Seafarers are sort of getting their hands on the tools and are using the tools. And it's multifaceted. I think we talked about this in some of the run up work that was done to this event where Seafarers are actually putting data in, getting reports, presentations, those kinds of things done, getting calculations Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: done, all that sort of stuff. So it's kind of out there and it's happening. And to your point, I guess it's sort of, you know, shadow, shadow AI and whether to your point about the policies in the room there, know, seafarers are no different from anybody else. And if you're pressured for time and all that sort of stuff, you're going to do it. Some interesting things around, which I find, I guess, a little bit uncomfortable around people relying on AI for, I don't want to say counselling, it's not so much counselling, but someone to talk to, kind of vent to and to, you know, when you're, when you're reaching your limit, to be able Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: to kind of, you know, so I guess it is a form of counselling or buddy or something like that, you know, and that seems to be bringing people a lot of comfort and people would sort of say, you know, I guess some people will be maybe find that shocking. if you think, mean, that's what teenagers are doing that, know, people who are isolated in crowds are doing that. Seafarers are actually isolated, you know, very often. Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Raal: So why the hell wouldn't they do that kind of thing? But it just, I guess it kind of made me sort of feel a little bit uncomfortable to hear. It's worrying, yeah. Nick Chubb: Yeah, makes me feel uncomfortable, I must say. I think... Raal: Because ultimately, you know, we... it's not real, right? It is artificial and the relationship that you feel like you're having is a simulcrum of a relationship and Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: it's hard to see that that could be sort of nourishing really. But I will mention this because I think it's something that we'll come back to. So Anne is working on a project for the Nautical Institute called STEER. I don't know if you've heard about this. Nick Chubb: Yes, yeah. Raal: You have Seafarer technology, engagement, empowerment and resilience. Lloyd's Register foundation funded project examining how new technology and changing work for practices affect Seafarer well-being, fatigue and stress. we've got things like, So they're looking at, you know, does the technology actually reduce workload or create more of it? That's the thing we've talked about a bit. Does automation support decision making or create a skill fade? Are seafarers properly trained to understand these systems that they're being, or is that being taken on trust? We've seen lots of examples of that where technologies have been dumped on seafarers and properly on boarded and that kind of stuff. Or sometimes are on boarded in the beginning, but then of course the seafarers change and if they don't then hand over that information when they've got a million other things to do, then obviously the next person in there hasn't had the full grounding in it as well. and whether or not technology decisions are being taken without an understanding of the practical impact on board as well. So it's a multifaceted project, should be really, really interesting and I think it's coming out pretty soon. So that was kind of interesting. Nick Chubb: Yeah, it's been done as a, the whole project's been done as a kind of massive, sort of mass participant survey, and then a whole bunch of research interviews as well. And so I think all the survey stuff is done, but they've had hundreds upon hundreds of responses. And we are in the process of contributing some data towards it as well. It seems like what they're trying to do is not just kind of highlight the problems but actually look at what could be the kind of tools that the seafaring community needs to be able to do their job better. So it looks like there's going to be some really tangible output from it. it's well worth it. If Raal: Well, let's hope. Nick Chubb: you can just Google the... project by the Northcliffe Institute and it'll come up, it's well worth taking a look at and Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: if you want to sort of get involved in that kind of work I'm sure they'd welcome an email. Raal: And if you're listening, come on chaps and tell us all about it in your own Nick Chubb: Yeah, yeah. Raal: words, not my mangled one. Just one last point I will make, and because I haven't heard this one before and it came up yesterday and I thought it was quite interesting. AI bias. So when we think about our industry, ours is a global industry, invariably a lot of the data that's building the AIs is coming from the US mainly in terms of what we're basing it on. And so there's a real kind of Westernization potentially which may prove to be unhelpful when we come to sort of apply it in a situation which is as global as shipping is. So yeah, so Dr. Kimberly Tom from the Alan Turing Institute. I mentioned there was some non-maritime people in there. So Alan Turing Institute highlighted the danger described as the westernization of AI models and data sets embedding Western assumptions, imagery, values and cultural perspectives that may not transfer globally. And I think that is something to be mindful of that we are introducing huge amounts of bias into this sort of stuff. But the other thing as well is just to say on that point, one of the things that came across quite strongly is the way in which people are setting up their AI systems and actually kind of not relying on generic data sets, actually taking the tooling Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: and training it on very specific data, very heavily tagged and vetted data, which again is obviously going to be essential when we're doing something as niche as we are. Nick Chubb: I think bias plus AI sicker fantasy is a very, very, very dangerous combination. Raal: Yes. Nick Chubb: Which brings us to a recurring topic and a skill set that we should all think about, which is critical for critical analysis Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: and being able to perhaps unpick why... when in reality it's not. Well, Raal: Yes, yes, yes, it's very important. Nick Chubb: I feel like that episode was a bit of a roller coaster ride. Raal: Yeah. Nick Chubb: It had its ups and downs. we're leaving the steer project hanging there maybe as a note of optimism that things may get better, at least for the seafaring population. Raal: Yeah, but I would say, know, generally speaking, I would say that certainly my half of the podcast should have reflected what was a very kind of very optimistic day. There was very little focus on some of the more kind of negative and threatening and sort of risk aspects of this. which is probably because I was very limitedly involved. I was only there as a moderator rather than a panellist. I would have brought everyone down. Nick Chubb: Hehehehehe Well, talking of being involved as a panellist, next week we are both in Athens for the DigitalShip Summit. Have Raal: Yes, looking forward. Nick Chubb: you got your big question all mapped out? Raal: I've got I pretty, yes, kind of, pretty much. I'm not. I'm kind Nick Chubb: Well, you're further ahead than I am then. Raal: what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to think about the audience, right? Because this the audience next week and come if you are if this sounds like you, technology leaders with all these responsibilities on their shoulders who are having to pick their bets for technology, having to convince people about investments. having to think about how they get the most out of their team, organize their people, get the alliances that they need in other departments. So I'm trying to put myself in their shoes and really ask rather than sort of more broadly, what, what are the big tech questions facing maritime? I'm trying to zoom in Nick Chubb: Yeah. Raal: on. what are the tech leaders really having to think about? And I've got two or three ideas. I just need to make sure that they stand up to the kind of scrutiny that, yeah, because you give it a kick in, know you, and then you'll just, because you get very competitive. You like to win, don't you? And if you throw enough red meat at them, they'll vote for you. So I'm trying to think about Nick Chubb: It's a scrutiny. I don't know you're talking about. Raal: how I could be more clever this time. Nick Chubb: Yeah, for our Undocked Live session next week, we're each bringing a big decision that Maritime CTOs, CIOs need to make in the next 12 months. And we're going to debate the merits of the decision. And yeah, we may well have a vote. I'll call for a vote if I feel like I might win it. Raal: Hahaha Nick Chubb: Otherwise, we'll just shut the session down. we'll see, hopefully, Raal: Yeah, that sounds about right. Nick Chubb: we'll see some of you. Hopefully many of you next week very much looking forward to it Just about Raal: And is there still time for people to register or is it gone? Nick Chubb: there's there's not many tickets left Raal: Okay. Nick Chubb: There's there's literally a handful of tickets left So if if if you want to register it is not too late go Raal: Be quick. Nick Chubb: to the digital ship comm forward slash summit Or drop me or one of the team a message and we can we can facilitate for you But yeah, there is there is we're very very close to selling out Raal: Very good. All right, well, pleasure as always, Nick. Nick Chubb: Awesome. Likewise. Thanks, Raoul. And I look forward to seeing Raal: Look forward. Nick Chubb: you face to face next week. Raal: Absolutely, yes, looking forward to it. Until next time everyone, bye bye. Nick Chubb: Awesome. Bye.