Local television station operator Sinclair will give viewers new ways to interact with its broadcast programming and advertising in a partnership with IRCODE.
Sinclair has made a strategic investment in computer vision and AI company IRCODE, which claims its systems will enable interactive, real-time shopping on TV. The investment amount was not disclosed. Other IRCODE investors include Craig Cullman, former chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records, who was recently named chief music officer of Warner Music Group.
In tandem with the investment, Sinclair will roll out interactive television powered by IRCODE at stations in Salt Lake City and Austin starting in July 2026, and in additional markets throughout the year. This introduction allows stations to make interactive television a native feature within their platforms.
IRCODE says its real-time image recognition system works like a “Shazam for images.” Identify what’s on the screen (without a QR code) and connect your audience to relevant content and commerce.
Sinclair’s implementation allows viewers to open their local Sinclair station’s app and point their phone at the TV. At that point, the app initiates an action that allows the viewer to purchase a product, enter a sweepstakes, or link to additional information. This happens within the station’s app, so viewers are identified and opted in, and every step from initial scan to conversion is captured as first-party data. For example, advertisers running spots on Sinclair stations in Salt Lake City and Austin can now measure who engaged, what they did next, and whether it led to a purchase.
Del Parks, president of technology, said viewers can use their smartphone cameras and the Sinclair app to take part in real-time polls, comment on local news and interact with advertisers. “IRCODE is a powerful technology that provides an easy-to-use interactive experience that adds tremendous value to your content. Now you can plan to integrate the user experience into traditional over-the-air broadcasts,” said Parks.
“Television has always delivered to the audience,” said Matty Beckerman, Founder and CEO of IRCODE. “What it didn’t do was prove what happened next.”
According to Beckerman, IRCODE changes that. “We provide broadcasters and their advertisers with the infrastructure to make every moment on screen interactive, measurable, and tied to real results,” he said. “At Sinclair’s scale, this is a new foundation for how television drives business results and how viewers connect with what they watch.”
JR McCabe, Sinclair’s chief business officer, said that while television remains “one of the most powerful mediums for reaching large audiences,” advertisers increasingly expect the same measurement, attribution and performance insights they get from digital platforms. “Our investment in IRCODE represents an important step in bringing these capabilities to broadcast television,” he said. “By combining the reach, trust and influence of local media with interactive technology and real-time attribution, we can create more meaningful experiences for our viewers while delivering measurable results for our advertising partners.”
The Conroe, Texas-based company was founded in 2023 by Beckerman, a filmmaker who spent 20 years “watching audiences fall in love with content that the industry can’t measure,” according to IRCODE. The patented computer vision AI technology used in IRCODE was invented by Philipp Holzschneider, a German engineer with a background in drone vision systems.
Watch the IRCODE demo video to see how the system works.
