Miami: a passenger assistant before security, biometrics after landing
Miami's multilingual AI hologram assistants give directions before security. International-arrival processing uses a separate federal biometric system; the two should not be folded into one passenger AI programme.
Aerial view of Miami International Airport, January 2026. Photograph: Quintin Soloviev / CC BY 4.0 (cropped to fit). Shows the airport, not an AI implementation.
The picture at Miami International
The border is not the information desk
A traveller asking where to go before security needs a reliable answer and directions. Miami has installed location-aware hologram assistants designed for that service.
For inbound international passengers, US Customs and Border Protection uses Enhanced Passenger Processing with SITA Smart Path biometric pods. Miami-Dade County reported a 12-pod implementation in November 2025.
The airport and federal authorities are accountable for different functions. Neither a pod count nor a language count proves passengers receive faster or better service.
Selected implementations
Two digital touchpoints with different outcomes
01 / Deployed
An airport assistant that knows where it stands
The operational problem
Directions are useful only if the system knows the passenger's location and gives an accurate route.
What the sources report
Miami Herald reported in July 2026 that MIA had four geo-aware AI hologram assistants developed with Mappedin, positioned before security and offering support in 40 languages.
Why it matters
The location awareness is more consequential than the holographic presentation if it helps travellers navigate the terminal.
What remains unproven
The airport has not published independent wayfinding accuracy, accessibility or task-resolution results.
These two records remain separate in the live register, with their own operator and source histories.
No additional publicly listed deployment records.
Measure the task, not the hardware
Miami's stories offer clear tasks: give a correct route and verify an arriving passenger.
Their results will be more useful than claims about how futuristic either interface looks.
Live data from the Aerostack register. Status reflects published evidence only. See Our approach for how records are graded.
Aerostack register · 2 tracked deployments
Aerostack tracks AI deployments across airports and airlines, with the published evidence behind each record. Photography is real aviation imagery. Record thumbnails may show the named airport or airline; other photographs do not.
