As airports race to undertake transformative applied sciences, Miami Worldwide Airport (MIA) is charting a daring path; mixing automation, combined actuality, and human-centred design. Talking forward of his look at World Aviation Festival 2025 in Lisbon, Maurice Jenkins, Chief Innovation Officer IAP C.M. at MIA, revealed the airport’s prime tech funding for 2025: an omni-channel chatbot built-in with interactive holograms.
“You’ll be capable of converse to a hologram and get real-time airport data while not having an app,” mentioned Jenkins. “Whether or not it’s WhatsApp, Messenger or one thing else, we’re eradicating friction and making it pure. That’s what nice tech ought to do.”
Jenkins will probably be becoming a member of world aviation leaders at World Aviation Pageant 2025, held from Seventh-Ninth October at Feira Internacional de Lisboa (FIL). The occasion will carry collectively 6,000 attendees, 600 audio system, and 400 exhibitors, with devoted tracks on AI, sensible airports, digital transformation, and autonomous expertise.
Past tech – creating emotional touchpoints by means of sensory innovation
Whereas AI dominates headlines, Jenkins says true innovation is as a lot emotional as it’s technological. MIA is exploring sensory branding, together with a signature scent and “Miami drink,” designed to construct a way of place and prolong the passenger expertise past arrival gates. “While you get off the aircraft, why rush to baggage declare? Why not keep immersed within the journey?”, he mentioned.
This strategy is a part of Jenkins’ broader mission to ascertain a tradition of innovation that reimagines buyer expertise and repositions the airport as a dynamic, adaptive ecosystem. “Innovation isn’t nearly tech; it’s course of enchancment. It’s cultural shift,” he mentioned.
Maurice Jenkins
Human-centred automation – robotics, autonomy and belief
From cleansing robots to autonomous lawnmowers, Jenkins is embracing automation, however not on the expense of individuals. “We’re not substituting people; we’re repositioning expertise so as to add extra worth,” he defined. Miami Airport can be working with distributors on plane turnaround analytics and autonomous car testing, drawing inspiration from airfield improvements in Hong Kong and Europe.
On AI, Jenkins stays pragmatic. “Everybody’s chasing the panacea,” he mentioned. “However we’ve seen actual promise in AI for income optimization and buyer expertise. On the identical time, we’re evaluating the place it might probably ship tangible operational advantages… not each airport is similar.”
MIA’s tech roadmap consists of experiments in parallel actuality and continued partnerships with startups. Jenkins says a few of these are “nonetheless underneath wraps.” However above all, it’s the mindset that issues… “We’re constructing a tradition of innovation. Our executives are backing it. That’s what is going to change our airport… and the business.”
Maurice Jenkins will probably be dwell on stage in Lisbon as a part of the Good Airports & Innovation observe at World Aviation Pageant 2025.