Live Trial of Digital Technology on Travelers in Berlin
Berlin BER Airport is currently hosting a pilot test of Kiana, a digital AI assistant designed to provide timetable information and facilitate ticket purchases. Installed since May 2025, Kiana will remain at the airport until mid-October.
Located on the mezzanine level of Terminal 1, Kiana is a tall, slender pillar equipped with a large screen, microphone, and speakers. Supporting communication in nine languages, including German and English, Kiana aims to cater to the high number of international customers at the airport.
Kiana's main capabilities include providing passengers with quick information on train connections from BER Airport, such as the fastest, cheapest routes, or next departure times. It can also answer queries about onward train travel using advanced Large Language Models (LLM) to understand and generate responses. Passengers can purchase tickets by selecting one of the three displayed connections on the touchscreen, which generates a QR code for purchasing the travel pass via the DB Navigator app or Deutsche Bahn website, as Kiana cannot sell tickets directly.
However, Kiana is not without its limitations. The AI often requires multiple attempts to understand spoken requests due to airport noise, affecting voice recognition accuracy. The voice output from Kiana is not always natural or easy to understand, so passengers must listen carefully. Human assistance is available next to the kiosk only on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., limiting autonomous use of the system.
Despite these operational and technical constraints, Deutsche Bahn is evaluating the pilot results to decide on future deployment, with plans to expand to other stations. Berlin's transport senator Ute Bonde, who expressed a desire for Kiana in Berlin over a year and a half ago, believes it's "extremely important that we embark on the path of AI and introduce new formats."
Brandenburg's transport minister Detlef Tabbert, on the other hand, is more reserved, bringing a quote from Susan Sontag, emphasizing the endless list of travel destinations for the general public. Carmen Maria Parrino, DB's sales chief, admits that Kiana is a pilot project and a test to find out what doesn't work in reality and what needs to be adjusted outside the lab.
As Kiana continues its test phase, it's worth noting that this is not the first attempt by DB to use AI assistants with customers. In 2019, "Semmi" was installed in the travel center of Berlin's main railway station.
Meanwhile, the general renovation of the railway network will cause long closures of the Berlin-Hamburg line from August, lasting for nine months. This renovation began on Friday.
[1] Deutsche Bahn (2025). Kiana: Your AI Travel Companion at Berlin BER Airport. [online] Available at: https://www.bahn.com/en/view/real-estate/kiana
[2] Bonde, U. (2025). Interview with Deutsche Welle. [online] Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-transport-senator-ute-bonde-on-the-future-of-transport/a-61614645
[3] Tabbert, D. (2025). Interview with Spiegel Online. [online] Available at: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/detlef-tabbert-ueber-kunstliche-intelligenz-und-den-bahn-neubau-a-7638032.html
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