For many innovators in the technology landscape, XR and AI are a match made in heaven. The most immersive experiences don’t just surround us with incredible visual and audio content; they also respond to our actions, delivering intuitive and adaptable interactions.
With artificial intelligence, companies in the XR landscape can gather more information about their users in real-time and use it to both strengthen business decisions and enhance the user experience. AI allows users to interact with the hardware and software in the XR landscape more effectively and paves the way for everything from gesture control to haptic feedback.
For XR companies accelerating towards the age of the metaverse, AI will also play a crucial role in making digital environments more powerful. According to Dr Colin Parris of GE Digital, AI and XR are two of the core building blocks of the metaverse. Here are just some of the ways XR companies are already taking advantage of the combined technologies.
Generative AI and Automation
Generative AI is one of the most exciting concepts to emerge in the digital landscape in recent years. Today, virtually everyone is talking about generative technologies like ChatGPT. For the XR landscape, generative solutions promise an opportunity to create XR content more efficiently.
Moth+Flame, a leader in the VR immersive learning landscape, recently launched an AI generative content authoring tool for its customers. The beta phase platform empowers users to create powerful VR assets using voice-activated interfaces. Invesco has already trialled the solution as part of its Sales Symposium and believes it will assist in creating an on-demand training environment for employees where users can access intuitive, personalized experiences.
Generative AI solutions allow XR developers to produce content at speed, while also giving their users an opportunity to customize their experiences. For instance, with generative AI, a user accessing an XR application could interact with a responsive digital customer in real time. The customer avatar would be able to respond differently to each action the agent takes, allowing for a more realistic learning experience.
Improving Connectivity and Capturing Data
To deliver exceptional XR experiences, both for everyday users and metaverse community members, companies need to ensure exceptional connectivity. After all, huge amounts of data need to be streamed seamlessly from computer systems to devices in the shortest time possible to make the experience immersive. AI solutions can help to manage the distribution of bandwidth and reduce the risk of lag between devices.
Already, countless companies have begun experimenting with AI-driven foveated rendering, which allows devices to increase the visual quality of the content customers look at, by tracking eye movements. Elsewhere, companies like Ericsson are building 6G research facilities, which will also explore the benefits of neural networks and artificial intelligence in the future technology space.
With added AI to help manage connection points, companies in the XR landscape will be able to deliver more streamlined, latency-free experiences to their users. This could allow for more instantaneous, realistic interactions with immersive content.
Companies in XR are also leveraging AI to help improve the amount of data they capture from customers to send back to software solutions. For instance, NVIDIA updated its AI-powered Broadcast product recently to feature new innovative eye-tracking capabilities.
The Broadcast tool already leverages a number of AI enhancements to help remove noise and echo during collaborative interactions. Additionally, there are various other features implemented for background removal, replacement, blurring, and auto framing. NVIDIA and Ericsson is demonstrating how AI in the XR landscape can help to improve the interactions between machines and humans, by accelerating and improving the data transmitted between both parties.
Enhanced XR Platforms and Computing
Microsoft, one of the market leaders in the AI and technology landscapes, is also investing heavily in the connection between AI and extended reality. Recently, the computing giant teamed up with NVIDIA to create an AI cloud supercomputing connected to the Azure cloud. The platform will leverage NVIDIA’s high-speed simulation and data processing technologies, helping XR innovators to deliver more impressive immersive experiences.
The new supercomputer will also unlock new opportunities in the generative AI landscape with self-learning algorithms which can rapidly create video, text, images, and code. According to Microsoft and NVIDIA, AI will help to fuel the next wave of automation in the XR space and empower companies to accomplish more with fewer resources.
Microsoft isn’t the only company investing in AI to create more powerful platforms and tools for content creators. Qualcomm, a leader in chip technologies, recently announced a new AR platform for smart glasses, which will include AI innovations.
According to the brand, the technology will reshape the AR industry, helping businesses to overcome common challenges with battery life, form factor, and field of view. The latest innovation distributes processing power throughout the device rather than relying on a single component, which reduces thermal output and improves smart glass flexibility.
An embedded AI accelerator and CV engine for eye tracking, as well as sensors and camera aggregation, will ensure companies can leverage the best possible performance from devices, when producing immersive experiences for the next generation of smart glass consumers.
The Endless Opportunities for AI and XR
The three core examples above are just some instances where AI is demonstrating its value to the extended reality community. With artificial intelligence embedded into the XR landscape, companies can leverage better computing power, improved machine/human connections, and enhanced immersive experiences. As generative AI continues to accelerate, this technology could even ensure business leaders can bring new and personalized experiences to the market at scale.
As we head towards a metaverse-ready future, AI will be a core factor in delivering value for every user in the XR landscape, as well as the companies developing new immersive tools.
