How to give visitors turn-by-turn AR navigation inside malls, airports and campuses — with no app download, in 7 minutes.
Key Takeaways
- GPS does not work reliably indoors, so most large venues still rely on static signage, 2D maps and fixed kiosks that go out of date as tenants and layouts change.
- NavMe delivers turn-by-turn indoor navigation in the browser through a QR code or location trigger, so visitors get directions without downloading an app.
- AR indoor navigation requires a spatial map of the building: NavMe ingests LiDAR scans or the architectural files a venue already has, then places AR overlays and routes at real-world coordinates with sub-meter accuracy.
- Indoor wayfinding gives physical venues behavioral analytics they otherwise cannot capture, including foot-traffic heat maps, engagement data and route patterns.
- MetaDigi Labs is developing AI agents that read the live camera feed and reroute a visitor around real-world obstacles such as a wet floor or a closed corridor.
- Venues retain ownership of their spatial and visitor data; the platform accesses it to enable the experience rather than taking possession of it.
Watch the Episode
About NavMe
NavMe is a spatial AI platform built by MetaDigi Labs that adds browser-based indoor navigation and AR wayfinding to large indoor spaces. It maps a venue from LiDAR scans or existing architectural files, then delivers turn-by-turn AR directions and location analytics without requiring an app download. Learn more at metadigilabs.ai.
About Suhas Malempati
Suhas Malempati is Co-Founder at MetaDigi Labs. Suhas has over 15 years of experience in retail technology and enterprise transformation, and is now building NavMe, a Spatial AI platform that brings browser-based indoor navigation and AR experiences to physical spaces. His work focuses on helping brands make real-world environments more intelligent, personalized, and interactive.
Suhas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suhasmalempati/
FAQ
What is indoor wayfinding?
Indoor wayfinding is the practice of guiding people to a specific destination inside a building, such as a store in a mall, a gate in an airport or a room on a campus. Because GPS signals degrade indoors, it relies on alternatives like QR codes, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth beacons, LiDAR-based spatial maps or visual positioning.
How does AR indoor navigation work without an app download?
The venue is mapped once into 3D coordinates, then navigation is served through the mobile browser. A visitor scans a QR code or triggers the experience by location, and augmented reality directions are overlaid on the phone’s camera view — no install required.
What is spatial AI?
Spatial AI is the use of artificial intelligence to understand and act on the three-dimensional structure of physical space. In practice it combines a spatial map of a building with computer vision and AI agents that can interpret what a camera sees and respond, such as rerouting someone around a blocked corridor.
How accurate is indoor navigation compared to GPS?
Consumer GPS is accurate to roughly five to ten meters outdoors and is unreliable inside buildings, where walls and floors block satellite signals. Indoor positioning systems built on spatial maps target sub-meter accuracy, which is what makes turn-by-turn directions to a specific storefront or room possible.
What does NavMe do?
NavMe maps large indoor spaces from LiDAR scans or existing architectural files and delivers browser-based AR navigation to visitors via a QR code or location trigger. It also gives the venue engagement analytics, heat maps and AI recommendations based on how people actually move through the space.
Chapters / timestamps
00:00 The problem with navigating large indoor spaces
00:51 What MetaDigi Labs is building
01:20 Where wayfinding breaks: malls, airports, universities, conferences
02:25 No app, no hassle: QR-based access and sub-meter accuracy
03:00 How a space gets mapped: LiDAR, architectural files, AR overlays
03:40 AI agents that reroute around real-world obstacles
04:00 Analytics: heat maps, engagement and AI recommendations
04:12 Demo: navigating a university building
04:53 Rollout strategy: facility management first, then students and guests
05:33 Getting started: scanning your space
06:15 Where to learn more
Resources
MetaDigi Labs: https://metadigilabs.ai/
Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom (00:00)
Have you ever had issues helping your customers navigate large indoor spaces like malls, airports, universities, or others? What if there is a way to give better intelligence to customers, employees, and others with the help of AI, AR, and spatial computing?
Welcome to one amazing thing about Meta Digilabs. Today we’re talking with Suhas Melampati, co founder at Meta Digilabs, and he’s gonna be sharing one amazing thing about their Navme platform with us today. Suhas, welcome to the show.
Suhas Malempati (00:36)
Hey Greg, thanks for having me. Pleasure to discuss about our product.
Greg Kihlstrom (00:42)
Yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to taking a look at it in a in a second here. Before we do that, why don’t you give a little background on you and your role at Meta Digilabs?
Suhas Malempati (00:51)
Yeah. Hey, everyone. My name is Suhas Malampati. I’m a co-founder of MetaDigi Labs. So we are in a mission to make indoor large spaces, interactable, intelligent, and measurable. And that’s what we are doing.
Greg Kihlstrom (01:06)
Great, great. So
we’re gonna take a look at the the navme product in a in a second here. But before we do, why don’t you give us give us a little background and you know, tell us who’s what is what is it, who’s the audience and and what does it help them do?
Suhas Malempati (01:20)
Right. So the audience has like, you know, anyone like, let’s take an example of a mall. You’re going into a mall and if you’re new to the town, you don’t have muscle memory of the mall. Even if you are in town years, you don’t know things frequently changing around the mall and the signs are static. And even if you have maps, it’s 2D and it said one kiosk or something and websites are static.
So what we are doing is without any app download, just a QR-based or a location-based, you can invoke and doing a step-by-step navigation to your favorite spot like stores, things like that. And this is also in airports, universities, you name it, any large spaces, conferences, especially if you get lost in conferences, to find the booths, keynotes, shows, those kind of stuff.
Greg Kihlstrom (02:12)
Yeah, I could definitely use that at conferences. I’ll tell
Suhas Malempati (02:15)
Thanks, yeah.
Greg Kihlstrom (02:15)
you. I I go to enough of them and and ever they’re they’re mazes. So that no, that that sounds great. Well yeah, let’s why don’t we take a look? Why don’t you share your screen and and talk us through it?
Suhas Malempati (02:25)
Yep, sure.
So it’s like an instant access. You need not download any app or something. And it’s a sub-meter accuracy and real-time AR navigation and no app, no hassle kind of fit. So these are the large venues, office spaces, retails, airports, hospitals.
You know, these are the large indoor spaces we often try to, you know, have difficulties to navigate, you know, and I’ll just show like how it works. So like when you’re trying to interact with the 3D world, you need to know it’s XYZ coordinates, like where everything is present in the 3D world. So we kind of connect the space with this LIDAR sensors.
or certain file formats which will be already there when a large construction space is happening. Usually the construction or architecture team, they have this type of data. So we take that into our platform and try to put AR overlays and navigation routes. And currently we are working on AI agents. Like small example, like AI agent is like, know, if you have a spillover,
And there is a board saying, hey, don’t walk through. But navigation is already set, but your camera reads that and redirects it based on the location. And this is pretty much you can deploy it URL-based, and you will have analytics behind it, like user behavior, engagement analytics, heat maps, and AI recommendations. So now quickly dive into the portal.
So this is a map of a university building.
Suhas Malempati (04:12)
So you just scan it and you get the options, you select it and you you get it. So right. So yeah, this is pretty much about the product and if you I mean want to yeah, yeah, go ahead, go ahead, sorry. Yeah.
Greg Kihlstrom (04:35)
sure, sure.
Yeah, no, this is it’s great to see. And like I said, I I definitely could use this in in my life ma many times. So I guess what’s what does this look like from you know, let’s say the university wants to enable this, you know, how how
Suhas Malempati (04:49)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Kihlstrom (04:49)
much control do they have over it and you know, what what are they able to do?
Suhas Malempati (04:53)
Right. So today, right, we are in Charlotte area. We are engaging with one of the university here. So first thing is we are trying to solve lowest hanging fruit, the facility management wise. You know, the facility management needs the employees to train, new employees to train where the buildings are, what needs to be done in that particular building, what’s the workflow. So we’ll try to use those as a a use case.
And later on as we scale we roll it to the students and guest to use it. And yes, to regarding to your question data wise and stuff like that, everything they own it. It’s just we’ll be accessing it and making enable for them.
Greg Kihlstrom (05:33)
Great, great. Well, so for those that want to learn more, you know, they have they have a space that they they need this for. How what’s the what’s the first step that they should take?
Suhas Malempati (05:44)
Yeah. first step is even like if even if you have don’t have any scans of your place, we have a mobile app with a VPS. so you you’ll have all the details around Meta DG Labs.ai website and that’s where you can download and scan your space and later on based on we can discuss what you want to do with your space, you know, or else you can load your space into our platform and start adding navigation.
Greg Kihlstrom (06:15)
That sounds great. Well and and for those that want to learn more, where should they go first?
Suhas Malempati (06:20)
Yep. so yes, like I am like it would be the website, metadilabs.ai, and we are very active in LinkedIn. You can search me Swas Malapati. so we’ll be continuously posting. And good thing is in a couple of hours I’ll be flying to LA for world’s biggest AWER XR conference. And we are doing some amazing things there, displaying our products and try to even do some navigation in the conferences as well.
