artificial intelligence Archives - Airports AI Alliance

Tara Mulrooney, former Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Innovation at Edmonton International Airport, is joining the Airports AI Alliance as Director of Innovation, North America.

Mulrooney brings experience spanning government and critical infrastructure as well as aviation, having also served as CTO at the energy regulator in Alberta from 2011 to 2019.

During her seven years at Edmonton International, she helped lead the Canadian Airport Council‘s work on data sharing, experience she will now bring to the Alliance as it looks to strengthen collaboration across the aviation ecosystem.

“There are siloed agreements between certain airlines and airports, but there isn’t what I’d like to call a minimum data set that is shared to ensure operational efficiency and effectiveness and, where possible, drive additional commercial revenue for all parties,” said Mulrooney.

The AAA Data Sharing Initiative was first discussed at the Alliance’s Summit in Dallas in April. It will bring together a cohort of airports prepared to share data with each other (and with airlines) to drive measurable benefits in operational and commercial performance.

Mulrooney believes this would also provide airports with greater situational awareness by reducing the number of disconnected information sources used across daily operations.

Her role as Director of Innovation at the Airports AI Alliance will also encompass delivering closer collaboration between airports, the private sector and research institutions.

The Alliance is launching an open innovation programme to help airports move beyond exchanging ideas towards delivering practical projects that can be adopted more widely across the sector.

“I’d love to see the Alliance become known as the place where ideas become action,” she said. “Where airports, industry, academia and governments come together to create solutions that can scale globally.”

Mulrooney sees the airport sector as a proving ground for challenges extending well beyond aviation. If airports can demonstrate how AI, trusted data and cross-sector collaboration improve operational performance, she believes those lessons could be applied across cities, transport networks and other critical infrastructure sectors facing similar digital transformation challenges.

“If we’re helping organisations move from experimentation to implementation, and from discussion to measurable outcomes, we’ll know we’re making a difference.”

In terms of AI adoption, Mulrooney believes that AI will fundamentally change how airports are operated by creating increasingly connected and intelligent operating environments.

“We’re looking at machine-to-machine intelligence and almost a virtual layer on top of an airport,” she said. “Can you operate an airport not just at the physical location, but from a virtual environment or a different location?”

She believes those capabilities could improve resilience during cyberattacks and other disruptive events while allowing airports to respond more quickly to changing operational conditions.

Mulrooney began her role on 1^st July and will present the Data Sharing Initiative to the network during virtual sessions and at the upcoming North American Leadership Forum in Atlanta in October.

Miami International Airport (MIA) has launched a large-scale deployment of geo-aware, agentic AI, introducing a new operational intelligence layer across the airport.

The ‘MIA Virtual Assistant’, developed with Mappedin alongside Satisfi Labs and Hypervsn, delivers real-time, location-based guidance across web, mobile, kiosks and holographic interfaces.

Rather than building a new platform from scratch, MIA focused on integrating existing systems into a single data environment capable of supporting AI at scale.

“We recognised early that the key to deploying geo-aware AI was not waiting for a fully built enterprise common data environment but having the insight to unify the digital strengths we already had and the operational capacity to evolve them into a fully integrated spatial intelligence ecosystem,” an MIA spokesperson told the Airports AI Alliance.

The approach draws on operational data including security checkpoint wait times, gate information and parking to support real-time, location-aware responses.

The rollout addresses limitations in previous wayfinding systems, which relied on downloadable apps and physical infrastructure.

“Our legacy wayfinding approach built around a downloadable app and beacon-based navigation was creating friction for travellers and limiting adoption,” the spokesperson added. “The system worked within its constraints, but it required passengers to install an app, depended on physical hardware, and could not adapt guidance based on real time conditions.”

The new system provides consistent information across channels without requiring downloads. Passenger interactions and movement patterns are captured as part of the platform, providing a view of demand and behaviour across the terminal.

“For airport operations, the questions travellers ask, the requests they make, and the movement patterns the platform observes create a cumulative view of the questions and behaviours that matter most,” they said. “Over time, these interactions reveal where travellers struggle, which areas generate the most inquiries, and where bottlenecks tend to form.”

The system runs within MIA’s Microsoft Azure environment, with governance, data control and security managed through existing airport IT frameworks.

“Airports have become complex ecosystems, and geo intelligence is a new layer of the digital infrastructure,” said Yuval Kossovsky, Managing Director of Transportation at Mappedin. “With Mappedin, we’re transforming indoor mapping from a static reference tool into a living system that perceives, reasons, and acts. Miami International Airport is showing the industry what’s possible.”

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Miami airport rolls out geo-aware AI across operations