Placemaking AI delivers data-driven insights to make visitor attractions more successful  

Large sites and venues, such as retail centres and leisure parks, typically rely on combining data from fragmented systems to obtain vital operational insights such as visitor behaviour, preferences, trends, sentiment and revenue. This can be slow, inconsistent, and hard to scale portfolio-wide — it can be a struggle to understand what’s working and what isn’t. 

Placemaking AI is a decision co-pilot designed to help site operators make their properties and venues more appealing and financially successful. It goes beyond counting visitors —it analyses behaviours, preferences, sentiments, and expectations to provide practical insights that help decision-makers to improve the performance of destinations and mitigate operational risk. 

Having matured its solution for retail destinations, the Placemaking AI team was ready to extend its application into adjacent segments such as leisure, airports, university campuses, and offices. Participating in Digital Catapult’s High Growth Accelerator programme, as part of the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme, gave the team access to computational power, technical and industry expertise, and valuable strategic guidance for bringing the solution to a wider market.  

Being able to work directly with Merlin’s insights and operations teams meant that Placemaking AI could turn everyday pain points into product capabilities. This enabled it to pilot and launch a new leisure module for its solution, using real-world attraction data and integrating audience and sentiment signals with operational KPIs across multiple countries.

The Placemaking AI platform now provides AI-driven insights across 106 million global points of interest and is being applied at destinations attracting 350 million visitors a year.  

• Turnover has increased 75% year-on-year (FY2025 to FY2026) 

• Expansion has continued into cultural venues, airports, and public spaces 

• Projects have been delivered in 24 countries (in the US and across Europe and Asia) 

• Placemaking AI has been applied to 540+ destinations globally (retail, residential, and leisure) 

• The tech stack has been transitioned to Agentic AI solutions 

• The business was shortlisted as Emerging PropTech of the Year by the UK PropTech Association 

• Placemaking AI was selected to participate in the Urban Land Institute’s PropTech accelerator programme (the oldest and largest global real estate network) 

The team will continue co-designing with operators while reinforcing their commitment to responsible and explainable AI. For the Placemaking AI team, AI is not a one-off rollout but a daily discipline, and the business is investing more into R&D that will enable it to help large organisations wanting to maximise efficiency and performance. 

Placemaking AI is now working with Merlin Entertainments to develop an advanced cognitive layer that delivers real-time simulation of audience behaviours. This AI-driven solution will enable virtual testing of test new ride concepts, marketing campaigns, and guest experiences, so that they can be aligned to target audiences before public release.  

Designed to be scalable, it’s suitable for application across multiple industries — from brands and e-commerce platforms to residential developers and urban planners — and will provide a valuable tool for testing concepts and ideas using real-time audience data, to support faster, insight-driven decisions. 

With the leisure module proven under high-volume conditions, Placemaking AI is now exploring opportunities with airports and mixed-use destinations where operational challenges are similar.

As global AI policy evolves, the support from Digital Catapult has helped us stay ahead, build responsibly, and lead with trust. The accelerator gave us momentum, industry insight, and the conviction to shape the future of AI in real estate. Burak Capli
Founder, Placemaking AI

Placemaking AI leverages artificial intelligence to make real estate properties—from high streets and cultural venues to residential neighbourhoods—more appealing and financially successful. The platform is designed to help property managers, developers, and local authorities understand what makes places work for people so that destinations can thrive. You can visit their website by clicking here.