Recently, Atlas publicly announced that it had received approximately $6 million in a seed funding round after two years of secretly developing a genAI-based XR content creation platform for enterprises and commercial use. This is becoming an essential point in the industry as devices become more affordable and accessible. That means content creation is needed to support the hardware promise.
Platforms like the one provided by Atlas are critical today as headset vendors and enterprise end users need a more diverse pool of developer talent and service offerings to enable XR in the office and at home. An easy-to-use XR content creation platform is essential to support adoption rates.
The company is raising capital investment in two rounds this month. Atlas secured $4.5 million in a round led by 6th Man Ventures (6MV) and an additional $1.5 million in another round led by Collab+Currency. Atlas is also leveraging research grants from the European Union’s High-Level Expert Group on AI. On the R&D side, Atlas is developing new technological solutions in compliance with the union’s ethical guidelines for trustworthy artificial intelligence.
Ben James, creator of Atlas With experience working at the “intersection of design and technology,” Atlas said it is poised to win over enterprise and commercial customers with an easy-to-use content creation platform suitable for a variety of use cases, from virtual events to e-commerce pathways. I did.
James also added:
I’m a self-taught coder, and I thought there might be an interesting way to look at architecture through the lens of machine vision. 2D drawings, such as plans, sections, and elevations, inherently contain three-dimensional information through line weights, annotations, and more. And at Atlas, what we started thinking about was connecting machine vision learning information from 2D images and into the 3D world.
Additionally, Atlas partners with leading game and RT3D content developers and brands to optimize the genAI platform to streamline and reduce the time needed to create XR immersive experiences. The platform achieves a streamlined and simplified workflow by enabling less-experienced developers to develop 3D XR content based on image or text input.
Create a technology stack that benefits end users
Atlas is developing the GenAI XR content creation platform to help customers quickly design applications from marketing to gaming. According to Atlas, enterprise and commercial end users can leverage the platform to build custom virtual worlds, assets and designs, and more.
The technology stack behind the Atlas solution, especially genAI, is key to diversifying our enterprise XR product offering. Atlas can leverage genAI to support a broad range of developer talent designing in-house immersive applications.
Notably, Atlas is also working with a team of AI, gaming and 3D design experts to develop its own proprietary software, which the company says will further simplify the development pipeline, allowing developers to complete projects “200 times faster.” said. . The company is working with Consortium 9, Shrapnel, and Square Enix to optimize its services, with the latter two currently investing in the Atlas genAI platform.
James added:
One of the things I think we’ve done quite effectively is partner with big-name game developers to help them build large-scale virtual worlds. But where there is a huge need for this type of technology is for small-scale support. Indie game developers create these worlds, games that couldn’t be created any other way. As such, the maps are constantly evolving and changing, adding stylistically consistent user-generated content elements to these gameplay mechanics. In general, the overriding principle we follow is that we think of games as becoming a platform. But more specifically for us, we’re targeting Atlas’ technology because we think creation is becoming part of the gameplay.
At a time when immersive technology leaders are eyeing 2024 as a landmark year for XR, Atlas is offering services exclusively to enterprise and commercial end users as brands and enterprises demand ways to leverage the emerging XR environment and the benefits it offers. We are providing it.
Atlas plans to roll out a public release version in the coming months, following an alpha testing period with a small group of independent creators.
As demand for XR content creation platforms grows, developer services will need to stay on top of emerging market trends in the coming year. Prominent players in the XR industry such as Meta and Microsoft are promoting in-house content creation platforms. Competition in the field of realistic content development is already fierce and is expected to become even more fierce in the future.