AiFi, a spatial intelligence platform empowering businesses to deploy autonomous solutions, today announced a collaboration with Microsoft to deliver the next generation of real-world artificial intelligence. The companies are collaborating to accelerate AI’s reach beyond the digital realm and into physical environments, transforming the way businesses understand how people and objects interact in stores, warehouses, stadiums, airports, and beyond.

Built on Microsoft Azure, this integration unleashes the full power of AiFi’s proprietary spatial intelligence engine, trained on over 90 petabytes of richly annotated, real-world data collected annually. That’s a dataset larger than what trained ChatGPT, yet entirely focused on understanding the physical world. Unlike conventional vision systems, AiFi creates a real-time, context-aware digital twin that doesn’t just see what’s happening, it understands where it’s happening, who’s involved, when, and why it matters. It’s not just a step forward in computer vision, it’s a leap toward a more intelligent, perceptive physical world.

“Understanding the physical world with precision is the next frontier of AI,” said Steve Carlin, CEO of AiFi. “That’s what this collaboration is about. By combining AiFi’s spatial intelligence with Microsoft’s cloud scale and enterprise reach, we’re enabling AI to help businesses understand everything that is happening in the spaces that matter to them. Working with Microsoft gives a startup like ours an opportunity to take advantage of cost structures associated with scale, and gives Microsoft the ability to access new capabilities for their agentic layer strategies for their cloud services and analytics.”

In a retail setting, for example, AiFi’s system can detect when a customer sees an object, picks it up, studies it, and puts it back, identifying not just the object, but the human interaction and the spatial context in real-time. This allows shoppers to anonymously purchase items in-store without having to wait in line, stop to scan or pay. AiFi doesn’t use facial recognition or capture biometric identifiers to ensure the privacy of individuals. AiFi’s technology achieves greater than 99% accuracy in each diverse setting. It was forged in the demands of live retail environments and is now being adapted for broader enterprise applications such as operational safety in industrial warehouses, track and trace autonomous shopping in airports, and guest experience enhancement in live event locations.

"Spatial intelligence is becoming a foundational layer of enterprise AI, especially as organizations look to bridge physical and digital experiences," said Jason Graefe, CVP of ISV & Digital Natives at Microsoft. “AiFi’s dataset and proven performance make them an ideal partner for bringing real-time intelligence into complex, real-world settings.”

As a longtime participant in the Microsoft for Startups Pegasus program and a global ISV partner, AiFi has benefited from deep technical collaboration with Microsoft’s engineering and industry teams. This expanded collaboration represents a significant leap forward: a commercially available, enterprise-grade AI solution that connects digital decision-making with physical-world actions.

While retail remains a key early use case, helping retailers reallocate labor dynamically, and unlock shopper insights, the broader opportunity lies in any environment where understanding human behavior and physical interaction in real-time can drive business outcomes. Leading global organizations and venues such as the Intuit Dome, ALDI, Zabka, Atlanta and Frankfurt airports, and Allegiant Stadium already trust AiFi to power frictionless, intelligent physical spaces that improve operational efficiency, enhance customer experience, and ensure safety at scale. From streamlining checkout in convenience stores to managing crowd flow at stadiums, AiFi’s spatial intelligence platform is built to adapt to the complexities of real-world environments across industries.

This agreement signals a new frontier in enterprise AI where physical space understanding and context is no longer a blind spot, but a competitive advantage.