Inside Miami International Airport’s Agentic AI Virtual Assistant Experience 

What does the airport of the future look like? Miami International Airport is on a mission to show you. 

As part of a Future-Ready Strategy, backed by Miami-Dade County Mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, MIA has done what no other airport has done before. They set out to build a passenger experience powered by AI and emerging technology. The fastest growing airport in the US and a key gateway to the Americas – welcoming over 55 million passengers in 2025 – MIA needed a solution that matches the diversity of its audience: multiple generations, multiple languages, multiple preferences for how they want to get help.

Enter, MIA Virtual Assistant – the first-ever large-scale, geo-aware agentic AI with web, mobile, kiosk and holographic digital avatar interfaces rolled out across an airport. Unveiled at eMerge Americas 2026, this permanent passenger support service is setting a new standard for global travel operations and transforming MIA into a next-generation airport.

A New Vision for the Modern Airport

Calm, happy passengers are good for business. A study from JD Power found that passengers who rate their airport experience as ‘perfect’ spend an average of $42.39 in the terminal – $16.54 more than passengers who rate their airport experience as ‘just okay’. As airports evolve from transit points into experience centres, passengers want more than efficiency – they want to feel informed, entertained and in control of their journey. 

MIA manages 60% of Florida’s international visitors and offers more flights to Latin America and the Caribbean than any other U.S. airport. Its terminal spans 10 million square feet. At that scale, with that diversity of travellers, the traditional model only goes so far. The airport already has static signage, a mobile app, and information desks staffed by volunteers to address customer needs. But customer service teams spend a significant portion of their time answering the same routine questions: where’s my gate, how do I get to the rental car centre, where can I eat.

MIA needed a technology that gives customers an alternative medium for those repetitive enquiries – and gives human staff the bandwidth to focus on the complex, high-touch tasks that actually need a person. With ambitions of creating what it calls Airport 2.0, MIA is rethinking the entire passenger experience from the ground up. “We’re leveraging innovation and tech to create a new, higher-end value-added experience across the airport ecosystem,” says Maurice. 

The MIA Virtual Assistant: Built on Geo-Aware Agentic AI

Airports are some of the most difficult public spaces to navigate, and the stakes are high: missed flights, hours lost and immense stress in an already unfamiliar environment. The industry is rapidly implementing new technologies but many of them fall short. AI chatbots provide fast, accurate responses but they often feel like nothing more than a glorified search engine, particularly for the third of passengers who want to see signage that automatically translates into their language.

The MIA Virtual Assistant transforms information into practical, personalised support across platforms, with HYPERVSN’s interactive avatars forming the experiential touchpoint of this service. This breakthrough in CX for travel hubs was made possible through the collaboration of five partners.

• Campaign 3D: Experiential integration and strategic partnership management 

• HYPERVSN: Holographic digital avatars 

• Mappedin: Indoor mapping and spatial intelligence 

• Radiant Technology: Real-time operational data translation 

• Satisfi Labs: Conversational AI abilities 

“Typically, our passengers depend on signage. They depend on contacting our volunteers or our operations staff that are in the terminal to find their way around,” says Ralph. The MIA Virtual Assistant presents another option – one that’s available 24/7 and handles multilingual interactions during peak hours with ease. The digital concierge draws on live, contextual data and AI capabilities to deliver a more hands-on approach with real-time awareness of passenger location and nearby facilities.

Beyond automated responses and the traditional web-and-app services and information resources, spatial intelligence makes a real difference when it comes to a visitor’s journey. Instead of just informing a passenger that their flight is leaving from Gate B12, the MIA Virtual Assistant provides specific instructions to help them get there from right where they’re standing. “The airport holograms work in a very unique way,” Maurice explains. “They are integrated with additional technology [allowing us] to create what we call geolocation awareness.”

The AI-powered engine behind these virtual assistants enables multi-step actions to happen seamlessly, without human support. With agentic AI, a passenger can ask the MIA Virtual Assistant a single question and it will independently complete consecutive tasks – identifying language, pinpointing exact location, pulling live flight data, searching for nearby amenities – to deliver a tailored response. Ralph puts it simply when talking about the overall experience: “it’s like one little condensed sensor,” emphasising that the AI holograms are particularly useful for more tech-savvy passengers who need help finding their way around the airport.

In the first month of use, the MIA Virtual Assistants completed over 20,000 interactions, generating notable interest from passengers.

Why Airport Technology Needs a Human Face

Today’s travellers expect more from airports, and they’re increasingly comfortable with the use of technology to give them the best possible service. However, empathy, care and connection remain critical in providing this experience. ACI World’s 2026 Global Traveller Survey found that, beyond just wanting faster support, passengers value experiential interactions. They want technology to remove friction in their journey without completely losing the human element.

HYPERVSN’s digital human technology provides an essential layer of MIA’s AI-driven experience. It transforms this complex, connected passenger support service into an engaging, natural interaction. Built using the CTRL Human Platform, the interactive avatars create a more comfortable and approachable way for travellers to engage with the solution.

• Human-Like Presence: Each AI hologram has a different appearance, reflecting the diversity of MIA’s global passengers. The hyper-realistic digital humans are dressed in matching MIA uniforms, signalling their role as brand representatives. 

• Multilingualism: MIA’s AI holograms speak 40 languages fluently and can communicate in over 100 languages through text on the touchscreen interface. 

• Accessibility: Passengers communicate as they would with a person – by speaking naturally. They receive responses through voice as well as text on screen, with further instructions sent to their mobile device if needed.

Sofia is rushing to catch a connecting flight and spots one of the virtual assistants near Concourse J. She walks up and asks for directions to her gate in Spanish. Within seconds, the AI assistant responds – also in Spanish – with her flight status, step-by-step directions to the correct concourse, and the route on the touchscreen map, generating a QR code so she can follow along on her phone as she walks.

The MIA Virtual Assistant addresses passengers’ most common enquiries: flight and gate information, terminal navigation, retail and restaurant discovery, accessibility support, tourism information, emergency and service announcements. Integrated into MIA’s existing passenger support amenities, it provides what Ralph describes as “a tremendous customer enhancement” helping the airport handle increasing passenger volumes while freeing up staff. For passengers, this means less reliance on static signage, which can be harder to find or navigate, and a handy alternative when in-person assistance is unavailable or simply less preferred.

Some travellers will still go to the information desk and get support from a human worker. Others will find answers on the app. And others still will walk up to a digital human, ask a question and receive instant guidance. “There are several generations of individuals that you’re dealing with when you’re coming through an airport,” Maurice explains. “Some want to talk to human beings, some would like to leverage this technology.” The new AI holographic experience gives MIA passengers an additional way to get support, while keeping the human element at the centre of the interaction.   

The FIFA World Cup Stamp of Approval

In the early stages of the MIA Virtual Assistant rollout, the four HYPERVSN AI Human units saw steady adoption, but the real test came in June, when Miami hosted the FIFA World Cup 2026. Airport capacity surged as millions of visitors arrived from around the world, and the virtual assistants’ knowledge bases were upgraded with the resources needed to inform, guide and entertain them at every step.

“Miami’s World Cup experience began at its gateway,” recalls Ralph, highlighting the airport’s role in shaping visitors’ first impressions of the city’s hospitality. During this milestone sporting event, the digital concierges offered everything from directions to the stadium to information on fan activations popping up around the city. Their role was not just to receive passengers at the airport, but to kick off their whole Miami adventure with interactive, personalised assistance – just like a friendly local. Maurice shares: “The kids were enjoying it, being able to take pictures and understanding the technology. It was a good framework for creating an experience.”

During the World Cup period, MIA’s new virtual assistant experience saw a 7% to 10% increase in utilisation, and the MIA team expects this growth to continue.

What’s Next for the Airport of the Future

HYPERVSN’s AI Human platform gave MIA’s multi-channel agentic service an interactive way to communicate with passengers. After the rollout of the first group of virtual assistants, MIA announced plans to expand with additional HYPERVSN Digital Avatars across the airport. This outlook is testament to the scalable nature of the model and MIA’s unwavering commitment to becoming the airport of the future.

Beyond passenger interactions, Maurice sees the technology extending into new territory. “We’re looking to take it beyond just a customer experience, but also…for the employees to be able to use and actually take one tool and create a more of an enhanced value-added resource.”

For HYPERVSN, this pioneering project is a blueprint for how AI humans can transform interactions. Multilingual, always-on support that scales to meet customers wherever they are.

Discover how HYPERVSN AI Human could innovate your customer experience. Get in touch at [email protected].