Airasia Super App inks 5-year collab with Google to push 'co-innovation ecosystem'

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Airasia Super App and Google Cloud inked a five-year deal. According to a press release, the partnership is aimed at pushing a “co-innovation ecosystem”.

This includes nurturing technology talent, co-creating software tools for innovation, delivering data-driven intelligence for MSMEs on the platform, and ensuring accessibility for users in both cities and rural areas. The partnership with Google Cloud will help airasia’s current ecosystem in transactions,while partnering up with entities such as restaurants, airlines, hotels and drivers.

The strategic collaboration and ecosystem building efforts will see Airasia Super App and Google Cloud establishing a Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) consisting of AirAsia Allstars and Google Cloud technologists.

The CCoE is aimed to “embed an agile culture” across all airasia Super App business units enabling teams to embrace change and upskill talent. This includes tapping into Google Cloud’s Site Reliability Engineering best practices, so that staff and AirAsia Academy graduates can strengthen their technical capabilities and meet the requirements of the fast-growing business.

By leveraging Google Cloud’s secure and scalable infrastructure, and advanced microservices, serverless and networking technologies, the CCoE will enhance the airasia Super App so that it remains robust and lightweight as more features and services are continuously added. This ensures that the platform runs seamlessly when accessed by a high volume of users at any given time, including those in rural areas with intermittent internet connectivity or using lower-cost smartphones with less storage capacity.

By deploying Google Cloud’s leading analytics, machine learning and AI technologies, the CCoE’s data scientists can also unify and analyse datasets to glean real-time insights into customer sentiment and emerging trends. This includes an understanding of the travel sector’s recovery trajectory and consumption patterns around food delivery, ride-hailing and more. The insights will enable the platform to serve hyper-personalised recommendations to users on behalf of MSMEs and help grow these businesses’ revenue streams.

Airasia Super App CEO Amanda Woo said it was important to find a partner that could transform the app into something beneficial for everyone across Southeast Asia’s heterogeneous communities. She added that the airasia Super App must be simple and easy-to-use while underpinned by inclusive design, interoperability and personalisation.

The company is also looking forward to exploring further co-innovation initiatives with Google, such as in digital travel planning, self-driving cars, cloud gaming, startup investment, or supporting frontline workers through Google Workspace.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said that super-apps are helping small businesses thrive and stimulate economies. "Airasia Super App is an inspiring example of a company that is innovating using cloud-first technologies to better reach and serve its customers. We are proud to be working with Tony Fernandes and his team to further develop talent and an open innovation ecosystem to meet diverse digital lifestyle needs across Southeast Asia," Kurian added.

Meanwhile, Capital A CEO Tony Fernandes said that the company has been in search of a partner that would help the company reach the next stage of its digital evolution. “I was looking for a partner to help us reach that nirvana, much like how Airbus and General Electric helped us grow from a little two-plane operation to become the fourth-largest airline in Asia. I went around the US looking for that partner, met Diane Greene from Google Cloud, and the journey started. With Kurian and his team, we are now on the road to disrupting the digital platform arena in the same vein as we did airlines,” said Fernandes.

Airasia Super App, which operates in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines, is part of Capital A’s digital pillar. Earlier this year, AirAsia Group rebranded the group holding company to Capital A. The change comes with the Group’s new core business strategy to be an investment holding company with a portfolio of synergistic travel and lifestyle businesses, which have rapidly transformed the AirAsia brand into much more than just an airline.

By 2026, Capital A aims to connect over a billion people in ASEAN, have 10 million monthly active users for BigPay, its fintech business, and take up 10% market share in Southeast Asia for Teleport. It also aims to achieve 21 million monthly orders on airasia grocer and five million sign ups for AirAsia Academy.

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