This week’s XR landscape is marked by significant advancements across diverse sectors, from gaming development to healthcare and content creation. Meta’s decisive shift towards OpenXR promises to streamline game development, while the NHS sees tangible benefits from VR-based pain management.
Meanwhile, AI is revolutionizing training and content creation, with platforms like Cicero delivering hyper-realistic scenarios and GIGABYTE partnering with TAICCA to launch an AI-driven XR content creation platform. These developments underscore XR technologies’ growing maturity and versatility, signalling a new era of immersive experiences.
Meta Unleashes OpenXR As Standard Gaming Development Path
Meta is set to introduce a new level of development freedom this week with the release of its v74 SDK. This update makes OpenXR the recommended way to create immersive experiences across Unity, Unreal, and Godot.
Since diving into the OpenXR initiative in 2016, Meta has been quietly laying the groundwork for this moment. With the OpenXR Meta package now matching the capabilities of the Oculus XR plugin, developers can finally build their projects once and deploy them across multiple platforms without sacrificing the unique features of Horizon OS.
As the XR landscape becomes increasingly crowded and competitive, developers have been seeking to reach more users without the hassle of rebuilding their projects for each platform.
NHS Debuts DR.VR
Medical professionals at Friarage Hospital have released the results of a testing period for the implementation of virtual reality headsets. These headsets have been shown to reduce pain, breathlessness, and anxiety in patients through calming VR experiences.
The hospital’s specialist palliative care team is deploying DR.VR Immersive Therapy Kits, a VR headset solution designed for patients receiving care at home in the Hambleton and Richmondshire areas.
NHS staff are utilizing the DR.VR Immersive Therapy Kits through a two-year lease, supported by fundraising efforts from Our Hospitals Charity, part of the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Additionally, Rescape Innovation Ltd. collaborated to provide the NHS division with the necessary technology and headsets, promoting innovative patient care solutions with the assistance of various funding bodies.
Fundraising Manager for Our Hospitals Charity, Lisa Meehan, said:
We are delighted to be able to fund this equipment and it is wonderful to hear that patients are already benefitting from it. We are always keen to improve patient experience and have been able to do this thanks to a generous donation and hope that many more patients will benefit from its use.
CGS’ AI-driven ‘Cicero’ Deploys Complex Workplace Training Scenarios in Seconds
CGS announced Cicero, a platform that creates hyper-realistic training scenarios, allowing employees to practice critical business interactions with AI-generated personas that respond dynamically to their approaches.
This platform enables organizations to deploy customized training scenarios in as little as 15 minutes, addressing a significant challenge in corporate learning and development (L&D): the time lag between identifying training needs and implementing solutions.
“Traditional workplace training is often generic, costly, and lacking in the real-world context employees need to succeed,” said Doug Stephen, President of CGS Immersive. The Executive continued:
With Cicero’s hyper-realistic scenarios, businesses can immerse their teams in dynamic, unscripted roleplay simulations for a limitless number of real-world circumstances. The engagement and feedback created with Cicero drives measurable performance improvements and ROI. What normally took teams weeks to develop can now be produced in minutes.
GIGABYTE & TAICCA Launch AI-Driven XR Content Creation Platform
At the 2025 SXSW festival, which is renowned for showcasing the latest in arts and technology, GIGABYTE, an innovator in immersive technology, announced a partnership with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA). This collaboration aims to promote the deployment of an AI-powered XR content creation platform.
During the SXSW 2025 XR Lounge, this partnership highlighted the event’s reputation as a leader in technological innovation. Together, GIGABYTE and TAICCA are developing AI computing technology that will introduce a new editing workflow alternative for creating XR content.
The platform will support 360 VR video editing, featuring AI-powered enhancements, 8K Topaz video AI upscaling, Adobe Premiere Pro integrations, and immersive storytelling capabilities in a 360 VR experience.
Additionally, GIGABYTE unveiled the VS AI Street Fighting Arcade, a text-to-image prompt-based service designed for creating gaming and immersive experiences. They also announced a VR Video Editing Workflow feature, ready for VR professionals andpromisings optimized AI-powered video production.
