Draft:Palona AI
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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Artificial Intelligence Restaurant Technology |
| Founded | 2024 |
| Founders | Maria Zhang Steve Liu Tim Howes Kelvin Ren |
| Headquarters | United States |
Key people |
|
| Products |
|
| Website | palona |
Palona (legally registered as Proactive AI Lab, Inc. doing business as Palona) is an artificial intelligence technology company that develops conversational agents for restaurants and other customer service-oriented businesses. Its products include voice and SMS-based conversational AI agents that handle customer interactions such as ordering, reservations, and customer service. Palona's technology is designed to integrate directly with restaurant point-of-sale (POS) systems and support real-time multilingual communication.
History
[edit]Palona was founded in the United States in 2024 by tech entrepreneurs Maria Zhang, Steve Liu, Tim Howes, and Kelvin Ren. The company launched with the goal of helping restaurants automate guest communication through AI voice agents capable of handling natural, human-like conversations over phone and text.
In 2025, the company emerged from stealth following a US $10 million seed funding round led by investors skilled in AI startups.[1][2] That same year, Palona was accepted into the eLab program at Mila, a leading artificial intelligence research institute based in Montreal.[3] The program supports early-stage startups applying AI research to real-world challenges.
Palona has offices in Los Altos, California, and Montreal, Quebec.
Technology
[edit]Palona’s system combines speech recognition, natural language understanding, and text-to-speech synthesis optimized for restaurant use cases.The company focuses on low-latency, context-aware voice agents that can process customer orders, upsell items, and manage requests like joining a waitlist or placing reservations. The agents support real-time multilingual interactions and are designed to mimic the tone and pacing of human hospitality staff.
Palona’s conversational agents are also trained to convey emotional intelligence, allowing them to adapt their tone and phrasing to match a brand’s voice and respond empathetically to guest intent. This design aims to make AI interactions feel more natural and personable, especially for non-technical customers and busy restaurant environments.[4][5]
Products and Services
[edit]Palona’s primary offerings include:
- AI voice agent for phone-based ordering
- SMS agent for text-based ordering and guest communication
- Reservation and waitlist management
- Real-time upselling and loyalty program integration
- Analytics tools for tracking guest interactions and order trends
The AI agent is marketed as a supplement to restaurant staff, aimed at reducing missed calls and automating routine guest interactions during peak service hours.
Media Coverage
[edit]Palona has received coverage from a range of independent media outlets across technology, business, and hospitality sectors since its early launch in early 2025.
Wired profiled Palona's deployment at Pizza My Heart, highlighting the use of its AI chatbot "Jimmy the Surfer" to offer 24/7 service with brand-specific tone and emotional responsiveness.[1]
VentureBeat reported on Palona’s founding by former leaders from Google and Meta, describing the company’s focus on personalized, emotionally intelligent customer agents tailored for non-technical businesses.[4]
Adweek shared how Cali BBQ achieved an 18% increase in Father's Day sales after implementing Palona's voice AI system to handle phone orders during peak hours.[6]
Palona’s $10 million seed funding and company launch were covered in GeekWire and Business Wire, with further reporting from HospitalityTech, which focused on Palona’s restaurant-centered design, and SiliconANGLE, which explored the broader implications of its AI platform for small businesses.[7][8][9]
ZDNet, Fast Casual, and Quartz have also noted Palona's use of emotionally intelligent sales agents designed for small and medium-sized businesses.[10][11][12]
An interview with Palona’s team and restaurant operators was featured on YouTube via Cali BBQ Media, showcasing real-world applications of its AI agents in hospitality environments.[13]
Additionally, a contributor article in the Forbes Tech Council cited Palona while advising restaurant operators on selecting AI models.[14]
Founders
[edit]- Maria Zhang, previously Vice President of Engineering at Instagram and CTO of Tinder.
- Steve Liu, former Chief Scientist at Samsung AI Center and a tenured professor at McGill University.[15][16]
- Tim Howes, co-inventor of the LDAP protocol and former CTO of Yahoo and Opsware.
- Kelvin Ren, former senior software engineer at LinkedIn and Google, and former co-founder and CTO of Beijing LYRobotix Co., Ltd.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Chokkattu, Julian (2025-01-30). "Your Pizza Guy Is Now AI". Wired. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Palona raises $10M for AI agents for retail businesses". GeekWire. 2025-01-23. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Mila eLab Program". Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ a b "Former Google, Meta leaders launch Palona AI…". VentureBeat. 2025-01-23. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Palona Launches Restaurant AI…". Business Wire. 2025-06-10. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ Bernstein, Arielle (2025-06-18). "How Cali BBQ Saw 18% Sales Lift With AI Agents for Father's Day". Adweek. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Palona Launches Restaurant AI…". Business Wire. 2025-06-10. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Former Google VP raises $10M for startup building AI agents for retail". GeekWire. 2025-01-23. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Palona launches restaurant-dedicated AI". HospitalityTech. 2025-06-10. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "The future of sales: These AI agents offer 24/7 "ABC energy" for SMBs". ZDNet. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Restaurant leaders using AI to replicate their own voices for ordering". Fast Casual. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Samsung Galaxy AI, Databricks funding, Goldman Sachs outlook". Quartz. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "The AI Revolution in Restaurants (Interview)". YouTube. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "A Practical Guide To Choosing Which AI Model Is Right For Your Restaurant". Forbes. 2025-07-16. Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Xue (Steve) Liu – Mila". Retrieved 2025-07-25.
- ^ "Dr. Xue (Steve) Liu – Homepage". Retrieved 2025-07-25.