Release Notes: Smart Kiosk Assistant#

2026.2.0-rc1#

This release expands Smart Kiosk Assistant with queue-aware ordering, a refreshed web experience, and a streamlined build workflow. This update includes the following changes:

  • The kiosk front end has been rebuilt as a React (Vite + TypeScript) single-page application, replacing the previous Gradio interface for a faster and more customizable web experience.

  • The ordering agent now runs its Qwen3-4B language model through OpenVINO Model Server (OVMS) instead of an in-process OpenVINO model, providing a dedicated, OpenAI-compatible inference endpoint for tool-calling.

  • A new queue analytics capability adds a person-counting service and an RTSP streamer, using YOLO detection with OpenVINO to track queue length from a video feed and expose a live MJPEG overlay stream.

  • The ordering flow can now adapt to real-time queue conditions, surfacing a dynamic peak-hour menu driven by the queue-service integration.

  • Speaker diarization has been enabled across the audio-analyzer and kiosk-core pipeline, improving turn attribution during multi-speaker interactions.

  • An optional multimodal identity service adds Face ID and voiceprint authentication, combining OpenVINO face and ECAPA voice inference with a FAISS index and SQLite loyalty profiles, enabled through a dedicated deployment profile.

  • A Makefile-based workflow simplifies setup and operations with targets for environment initialization, model download, sample-video retrieval, image build, service startup, health checks, and cleanup.

  • Sample-video tooling downloads and provisions the RTSP feed clips used by the queue analytics pipeline, configurable through the environment file.

2026.1.0#

The initial release of Smart Kiosk Assistant marks the launch of a voice-enabled interactive application for retail, QSR, Airlines and other customer-facing environments. The application has the following features:

  • Designed as a conversational AI experience, it enables users to engage naturally through speech and receive intelligent, spoken responses in real time.

  • The platform brings together speech recognition, retrieval-augmented generation, and text-to-speech in a seamless, end-to-end voice interaction flow.

  • With browser-based voice capture and natural audio playback, the experience feels intuitive, responsive, and ready for real-world engagement.

  • Smart Kiosk Assistant grounds every response in an ingestible local knowledge base, helping deliver more relevant, context-aware, and business-specific answers.

  • Its integrated AI stack combines kiosk UI, orchestration, speech-to-text, retrieval, and speech synthesis into a unified deployment-ready application.

  • The experience is further enhanced by built-in visibility into model KPIs and live performance data, including runtime model details and latency metrics.

  • Optimized for local and edge deployment, the application leverages OpenVINO acceleration on Intel hardware for efficient AI inference.

  • Docker Compose packaging and flexible configuration make the solution easy to deploy, adapt, and scale across enterprise environments.

  • This launch establishes Smart Kiosk Assistant as a strong foundation for immersive, intelligent, and voice-first digital engagement experiences.

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