Palona goes vertical, launching Vision, Workflow features: 4 key lessons for AI builders

Building an enterprise AI company on a "foundation of shifting sand" is the central challenge for founders today, according to the leadership at Palona AI. Today, the Palo Alto-based startup—led by former Google and Meta engineering veterans—is making a decisive vertical push into the restaurant and hospitality space with today's launch of Palona Vision and Palona Workflow. The new offerings transform the company’s multimodal agent suite into a real-time operating system for restaurant operations — spanning cameras, calls, conversations, and coordinated task execution.The news marks a strategic pivot from the company’s debut in early 2025, when it first emerged with $10 million in seed funding to build emotionally intelligent sales agents for broad direct-to-consumer enterprises. Now, by narrowing its focus to a "multimodal native" approach for restaurants, Palona is providing a blueprint for AI builders on how to move beyond "thin wrappers" to build