HTC VIVE, GenAI, Enterprise XR, Industrial Metaverse, Talking About the Future of Virtual Reality

GenAI is without a doubt one of the most important potentials in recent technological history. Unlike other technological promises that quickly follow the hype cycle and then show a fairly noticeable decline, genAI seems to be bucking the trend.

GenAI is proving to be a huge cost and time saving advantage, which is truly job-agnostic and suitable for many industries. XR, on the other hand, has struggled to gain traction, and one could argue that genAI has taken over.

But as the hype around genAI continues, so too does its success, making it a must-have investment for companies like NVIDIA, Meta, and HTC VIVE, who recognize not only the paradigm-shifting nature of genAI, but also its impact on enterprise XR.

Recently, John Dabill, Director of VIVERSE Product Operations at HTCIn an exclusive interview with XR Today, we highlight the parallel emergence of XR and AI and how this technology can invigorate the AR/VR/MR industries.

Enterprise scenarios where genAI and XR work together most or least effectively

John Darville: GenAI can be a very powerful tool if used correctly, but it requires training and clear guidance for staff.

In today’s XR world, GenAI is already being used by VIVERSE for Business to quickly and easily enable things like taking minutes from virtual meetings, real-time translation, or teaching a virtual assistant company information.

GenAI should be used to make things easier and better, but not to completely replace people. It is important to keep in mind that AI is still in its early stages and more sophisticated use cases will emerge in the future. In the short term, we can already see this in virtual personal assistants, but in the long term, it will become more sophisticated, such as creating accurate 3D assets or helping to test scenarios, such as in the industrial metaverse.

What are the risks of GenAI?

John Darville: Data privacy and risk remain critical, with the biggest risks occurring when organizations lack clear policies for AI use and guidance on how company data is fed into external AI.

We have worked hard to ensure that VIVERSE for Business is transparent, especially when it comes to how AI is used. Any data they provide to the platform remains theirs alone.

Leveraging GenAI data to optimize enterprise XR services and support worker decision making

John Darville: GenAI has the potential to really complement XR. It’s not that it increases value, it’s that it can unlock value.

GenAI can help organizations at every stage, from coding to training to find patterns, especially on large data sets.

It’s easy to see use cases where AI can analyze behavior across dozens of training scenarios and quickly identify where trainees are consistently struggling. These data sets can then be presented to real workers to determine the next course of action.

For example, our partner Cognitive3D specializes in spatial data analytics, which allows XR training programs to get a complete picture of where trainees are looking and what they are doing at any point during the training. This allows organizations to understand and improve the performance of individual trainees.

Likewise, you can apply real-world physics engines and then use AI to test scenarios, such as optimizing factory operations or hazardous environments where you need to minimize risk.

Creating Accessible XR Solutions Using genAI

John Darville: GenAI can certainly be used to break down barriers, but it’s not a panacea.

GenAI should be adopted slowly but surely, and features like real-time translation in XR would also be beneficial, as it would make the solution more accessible to people with different linguistic backgrounds.

But AI can extend far beyond XR. For example, it can be used to model and test the ergonomics of various products or buildings built in a virtual environment using accurate physical models. And more importantly, it can enable people with limited mobility to verbally describe those objects and images.

Taking this concept further, GenAI could even be trained to generate virtual environments based on an individual’s request, removing the barrier of technical knowledge and allowing everyone to build their own virtual world.

Integrating genAI and XR into existing digital infrastructure

John Darville: GenAI and XR are a natural fit. In enterprise XR, people have to rely on relatively limited input options to communicate complex ideas, from data visualizations to 3D objects and even their own emotions.

Now people can give commands to AI in everyday language, and AI can interpret those instructions to create charts, models, and images.

Expanding AI, XR, and Immersive Collaboration Solutions

John Darville: As we build VIVERSE for Business, we found it natural to integrate GenAI. The platform already has AI capabilities, and we are applying them. Arthur C. ClarkeThe principle is that technology should be unobtrusive and require few requirements, but appear and work like magic when needed.

Depending on the scale of your ambitions and the scale of your work, there is generally no fundamental reason why you can’t leverage GenAI. In addition, we’ve built VIVERSE to be easy for companies to integrate into their existing infrastructure.

Data transparency and privacy are key to the adoption of any new technology and will remain a major challenge going forward. It is essential to ensure external AI has the transparency to satisfy the organization’s legal and risk departments.