The city of Frisco renewed a three-year deal with Placer.AI, a location intelligence and foot traffic analytics platform that processes mobile device and credit card data to measure and analyze visitation patterns.
The Frisco City Council voted 4-2 to approve the $345,136 renewal of the platform during its Sept. 15 meeting. Council members Burt Thakur and Jared Elad voted against the item.
The gist
Placer.AI collects location data through third-party mobile applications installed on mobile devices to measure, analyze and forecast visitor behavior. Those apps can provide proximity and location information—using GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth—when users have location sharing enabled.
Before Placer.AI receives the data, its partners strip out personal identifiers like names, phone numbers and mobile advertising IDs. The company then aggregates the information from multiple devices and uses statistical modeling to estimate visitation patterns.
Metrics include foot traffic trends, trade area maps, demographics, popular visitation times and dwell times. The Frisco Public Library, parks, economic development corporation and development services can also access the visitor data, city documents state.
What they’re saying
Visit Frisco Executive Director Josh Dill said the original contract with Placer.AI was limited to 10 users and focused largely on events and tourism.
Dill said Placer.AI has been used by city employees for a labor shed study, analyzing Stonebriar Mall, analyzing the impact of Frisco’s gift card program, sports venue operations studies, Dallas Cowboys training camp attendance and grant applications for Kaleidoscope Park.
“We use [Placer.AI] on pretty much a daily or weekly basis,” Dill said. “This will allow a more enterprise solution so it’s not just tourism focused. Most of our departments other than public works and public safety are going to be able to utilize it now in a way we previously couldn’t.”
Thakur expressed concerns with Placer.AI's data collection sourcing, imploring the organization to provide its visitor information practices in writing for further staff review.
“The rights of citizens, especially with tools that can be used to aggregate data, are very important, especially as they’re doing business with local and regional governments,” Thakur said. “I do want to ensure we have those protections in place that [Placer.AI] cannot use the services that we’re providing and paying for, for their own use to market and sell.”
One more thing
The city of Frisco has contracted with Placer.AI since 2025. According to city documents, Frisco staff negotiated the deal to lock in annual pricing while avoiding large annual price increases.
FY 2027: $99,750
FY 2028: $119,700
FY 2029: $125,686
Funding to renew the contract is available through the Visit Frisco operating budget. The renewed contract runs through Sept. 30, 2029.
