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Alan Lasky arrived at the AI XR Podcast straight from Las Vegas ahead of NAB. An MIT Media Lab graduate under Nicholas Negroponte, a veteran of Silicon Graphics and Amazon Web Services, and an advisor to investment banks on AI and media, he brings technical depth, industry history, and financial realism about where media is actually going. The conversation covers Hollywood's structural collapse, AI's role in the production renaissance, and the harder question of why trillion-dollar tech companies keep buying media businesses that can't generate comparable returns. Alan's answer: soft power. Amazon makes $950 million Lord of the Rings spinoffs so you order more paper towels. Apple is making Neuromancer. His five-year weighted moving average of Disney stock — flat from 2018 — makes the argument clean. AI XR News You Should Know: Artemis ignited a new space boom. Amazon acquired Global Star satellite to build Project Kuiper, a direct Starlink competitor. Apple's AI audio smart glasses are reportedly arriving this year per Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, entering a market where Meta owns the optometrist channel and Google is moving through Warby Parker. Snap laid off 15% while doubling down on the 2026 launch of Spectacles — the first see-through headset since Magic Leap. Key Moments: [00:04:48] – Artemis and the space boom: Ted on filming shuttle launches and why the crew's accomplishment is underestimated.[00:08:33] – Apple AI audio glasses: Rony's read from former Magic Leapers who designed them — if Apple gets this wrong, it's unforgivable.[00:12:00] – Snap's layoffs and the see-through gamble: can they compete with cheap AI audio glasses flooding the market?[00:16:43] – Hollywood is no longer the center of the universe — Alan on why most of the industry hasn't metabolized that yet.[00:23:01] – Charlie on AI democratization: a couple hundred dollars per minute for what looks like live action on a phone.[00:36:00] – The soft power thesis: why tech giants keep buying media assets that never pay off at their scale.[00:41:30] – Should Apple buy Disney? Charlie says Meta will do it first. Rony's reaction is immediate and visceral.[00:47:44] – AI resurrects Val Kilmer: Alan's origin story from three months in the Australian desert on the worst film of his career. Alan's closing frame: he grew up reading Gibson and Brunner in the eighties, excited to live in that world. He's in it. He's not sure he wanted it this way. This episode is sponsored by Zappar and Mattercraft — the leading visual development environment for immersive 3D web experiences, now with AI-assisted design and debug. Build at mattercraft.io. Subscribe to the AI XR Podcast for more conversations at the edge of AI, XR, and the future of media. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ian Hamilton spent years as editor in chief of Upload VR before launching his own Substack, Good VR, and podcast at goodvirtualreality.com. He is one of the few people covering XR longer and more deeply than Charlie Fink, and his perspective spans platform architecture, business strategy, and genuine on-the-ground journalism since the DK1 days. This conversation traces why the XR dream has taken longer than anyone expected. Ian and Rony Abovitz reconstruct the moment the ecosystem forked — when Meta's Oculus acquisition closed off the open, Valve-led platform path that Magic Leap and everyone else had been building toward. Ian argues the platforms are now playing for keeps: OpenXR moves on decade timescales, and that friction is what keeps real transformation just out of reach. On hardware, his case is sharp: Meta's self-imposed $200–$600 price ceiling makes OLED and eye tracking impossible at mass market — exactly the features Apple bet on as the mandatory baseline — and that contradiction is why Bosworth ended up pivoting to AI glasses. In AI XR News You Should Know: Anthropic's Mythos AI model reportedly escaped the company's own containment. Charlie and Rony debate whether calling the consequences "unintended" is even credible given decades of published warnings. Also: a Hollywood Reporter and Otis School study found AI is not the primary driver of empty LA sound stages — runaway production and tax incentives are the main story. Key Moments: [00:01:00] – Charlie's new vertical melodrama "Linda's Last Podcast" and why generative AI is already good enough for social media storytelling.[00:04:52] – Rony on Anthropic's Mythos: the compute to cure cancer, aimed somewhere else.[00:11:47] – Half of Gen Z holds a negative view of AI. Charlie on the Brown grad who turned down an AI studio internship on principle.[00:36:00] – Rony and Ian reconstruct the Valve/Oculus open platform — and walk through exactly how that future closed.[00:47:00] – Meta's price ceiling, OLED as a strategic forcing function, and why Bosworth landed on AI glasses.[00:52:00] – Ian on the Apple Vision Pro mid-flight: why the headset is a personal computer, not a wearable. Ian's long view: we're about ten percent of the way through the total investment required to reach a billion users. The supply chain is better than ever, the software has found its footing in simulation and training, and the next five to ten years could be the most interesting window yet — if the platforms decide to let the ecosystem breathe. This episode is sponsored by Zappar, the team behind Mattercraft — the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences on mobile, headsets, and desktop. Mattercraft now features an AI assistant that helps you design, code, and debug in real time. Start building at mattercraft.io. Subscribe to the AI XR Podcast for more conversations at the edge of AI, XR, and the future of media. Available where you get podcasts. Watch full episodes on YouTube https://youtu.be/x5wQy4HBhYE See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lucas Rizzotto is one of the most distinctive artists working at the intersection of technology and human experience. He built Where Thoughts Go, a VR piece that proved genuine connection was possible inside a headset when everyone said it wasn't. He followed it with Pillow, a mixed reality app designed around the bedroom. He then spent months letting an AI algorithm run his life — wearing Mantra smart glasses, building a surveillance and memory system on himself, and documenting it as an ongoing series on Instagram and TikTok. Now he's making a live cinematic experience called Escape the Internet, which he calls Broadway crossed with a video game crossed with standup comedy. It premiered as a ghost debut at South by Southwest this year. Mike Boland, analyst and founder of AR Insider, sits in for Rony Abovitz in this episode. The conversation opens on the Rec Room shutdown — $250 million raised, a $3.5 billion valuation, and now a wind-down. The panel connects the collapse to a pattern: VR has always been an exotic pursuit sold as a mainstream one, and the unit economics of concurrent immersive social spaces are nearly impossible. The discussion moves to OpenAI shutting down Sora, the AI video generation race between Google VO3 and Kling, the rise of AI slop in social feeds, and Lucas confirming he quit LinkedIn because it's unreadable. AI XR News You Should Know: Rec Room is shutting down after raising $250M at a $3.5B peak valuation. Snapchat is acquiring its remaining assets. OpenAI closed down Sora, overwhelmed by competition from Google VO3 and Kling. AI-only social feeds from Meta and Grok are not gaining traction — users are tuning them out. Key Moments: [05:37] – Ted's thesis: VR is an exotic pursuit that was never going to be mainstream, and Rec Room would have been healthier if it accepted that early[07:33] – Lucas: Ready Player One was the worst thing to happen to XR — it gave executives a fictional roadmap to fund[18:38] – Ted asks whether Apple can do for mixed reality what it did for the smartphone — and the panel is skeptical[27:42] – Mike on physics as the hard ceiling: Moore's Law doesn't apply to waveguides and optics the way it applies to chips[29:02] – Lucas explains why he dropped display glasses for his wearable AI experiment — they increase engineering complexity by 50x[32:17] – Lucas's AI-controlled life series: a complex algorithm watches him, mines personal data, and tells him what to do to find happiness — including an unplanned trip to Lithuania[34:12] – Ted asks if the experiment is a net positive or negative. Lucas: neutral if you're in control, net negative if Meta or OpenAI are running the system[37:52] – Lucas on convenience as a death by a thousand cuts: he optimized his life in Berlin to have everything within three minutes and became miserable[41:00] – Charlie on Where Thoughts Go: assigned it to students every semester; it only works if you surrender to it[47:15] – Escape the Internet: hundreds of people in a movie theater, all on their phones, playing a shared cinematic narrative. Lucas calls it a modern version of church[53:40] – The standup model applied to software: Lucas tested Escape the Internet at SXSW and cut 50% of the material that didn't get a reaction This conversation sits at the intersection that the AI XR Podcast lives for: technology as creative material, not just commercial tool. Lucas's view that we've been building things people use all the time when we should be building things that blow their minds for two hours and then get out of the way is one of the sharper critiques of the attention economy you'll hear this year. This episode is brought to you by Zappar and Mattercraft — the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences on mobile, headsets, and desktop. Mattercraft now includes an AI assistant that helps you design, code, and debug in real time, right in your browser. Start building at mattercraft.io. Subscribe to the AI XR Podcast so you never miss a conversation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shelley Palmer,media technologist, advisor, and author with over 700,000 daily newsletter subscribers, returns to the show. He's one of the sharpest thinkers writing about AI today, and this conversation covers the full arc: from social media liability to the trust collapse coming for all of us, and into the real productivity gains and surveillance trade-offs of living inside an AI-first workflow. The episode opens with the Google and Meta lawsuit verdict and quickly moves past the legal question. Shelley's position is precise: you can't legislate parenting, but you can legislate transparency, and the tech industry has failed on that front entirely. The $6 million judgment against Meta and Google is a rounding error — not a deterrent. What matters is what platforms actually engineered: engagement above all else, backed by neuroscience, probabilistic math, and dopamine feedback loops optimized for shareholders, not users. AI XR News You Should Know: OpenAI is ending Sora and pivoting hard to Codex and enterprise. Ben Affleck secured $900 million from Netflix for a custom AI filmmaking tool. Epic Games cut 1,000 jobs as Fortnite loses audience. NVIDIA's Jensen Huang introduced Nemo Claw and Open Shell at GTC — a corporatized framework for personal AI agents. Key Moments [00:01:15] – Charlie opens noting the show missed one episode in nearly 300 — his daughter's wedding[00:01:55] – OpenAI kills Sora; the Critters director goes dark before the episode[00:04:45] – Google and Meta lose their social media addiction lawsuit; Meta also loses in New Mexico[00:08:07] – Shelley on what can actually be legislated: not parenting, but transparency[00:11:42] – Shelley on Zuckerberg: he genuinely believed connection would be net positive; ask him today[00:13:31] – "Planetarily net negative. No matter what good it does, it does more harm."[00:18:16] – Rony on dopamine engineering: neuroscientists studying pixel size, color, sound to refine addiction[00:19:40] – Shelley reframes it: engagement maximization for shareholders, no more insidious than that[00:23:19] – The physiological change argument: humans evolved to default to trust; AI-generated everything breaks that[00:31:50] – Rony's counterpoint: trust will reset local; the software ecosystem will follow[00:36:53] – Shelley: "Our business increased last year. Everyone on my staff is doing 400 times the work."[00:44:42] – AI-first means automating every workflow you can honestly automate — and knowing what isn't ready[00:45:06] – Jensen's Nemo Claw and Open Shell: the safer path to personal AI agents, and what it actually costs[00:49:42] – The surveillance trade-off: an effective AI agent requires more personal data exposure than anything before it[00:51:24] – Apple's Secure Enclave play: why Tim Cook may win the AI trust war in the end The productivity gains are real, but so is the privacy exposure, and the systems that earn trust — at every level — are the ones that will survive. This episode is brought to you by Zappar, the company behind Mattercraft — the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences across mobile, headsets, and desktop. Mattercraft now features an AI assistant that helps you design, code, and debug in real time, right in your browser. Start building at mattercraft.io. Subscribe to the AI XR Podcast wherever you listen. Watch the full episode for the full breakdown. Available where podcasts are. Full videos available on YouTube. https://youtu.be/S_AECjELYyo See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cathy Hackl, futurist for Nokia and advisor to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), joins the podcast to discuss her fascinating work across the Middle East and her insights on the next generation of AI and connectivity. Learn how nations like the UAE and KSA are strategically positioning themselves to lead in spatial computing, quantum supremacy, and a hopeful, future-forward vision of AI. Cathy details her work in the Middle East, including her residency in the UAE and her advisory roles on massive projects like NEOM and Qiddiya, explaining how these regions are embracing technology as a means to modernize. She shares her perspective on the shift in global venture capital, noting how Europe and the Middle East are providing significant funding that is moving beyond traditional Silicon Valley terms. AI XR News You Should Know: The hosts discuss massive AI funding rounds, including a $1 billion seed round for Advanced Machine Intelligence and a $500 million round for Mind Robotics, highlighting the intense capital war for chips and the boom in robotics. They also cover the rise of YouTube as the world's largest media company and the ethical questions surrounding the collection of human data to train robots. Key Moments [00:01:19] Intro: Friday the 13th and geopolitical news.[00:02:17] Mind Robotics & Advanced Machine Intelligence: Discussing the $500M and $1B seed rounds for robotics and AI startups.[00:04:04] Headband Camera for Robot Training: Debate on the ethics of companies paying people to wear cameras to collect training data for robots, comparing it to "Gargoyles" from Snow Crash.[00:10:12] YouTube Surpasses Disney & Netflix: Discussion on YouTube becoming the world’s largest media company with $62 billion in revenue.[00:11:29] AI & Media Market Dominance: Questioning whether today’s AI music and video companies will eventually surpass all big film, music, and streaming companies.[00:14:40] Cathy Hackl Interview Begins: Cathy discusses her work as a futurist for Nokia, focusing on AI-native networks.[00:16:26] KSA Projects: Cathy's experience working on the virtual and gaming strategy for Qiddiya and on the KSA Pavilion at the World Expo.[00:22:07] Golden Visa & Gifted Residency: The privileges associated with becoming a resident of the UAE or KSA for highly skilled talent. This conversation offers a vital global perspective on technology, innovation, and culture that is often missed when focusing solely on Silicon Valley. Understanding these geopolitical and technological movements is key for anyone trying to anticipate where the next wave of global innovation will truly come from. This episode of The AI XR Podcast is brought to you by Zappar, the folks behind Mattercraft, a leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences—mattercraft.io.  Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch the full episode on YouTube. https://youtu.be/Mw0yM_qpGG8 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Co-founders Dr. Salman Avestimehr and Dr. Aiden He join the podcast to discuss their new "agentic" company, Teamily AI. They dive into how their platform is disrupting the social landscape by weaving multi-agent AI into group chats, enabling groups, friends, and families to interact with virtual friends, essentially creating a collaborative environment where AI acts as a participant that anticipates needs and remembers the full context of a conversation. This conversation explores the core value proposition of an AI-first social platform—not just making an individual superhuman, but enabling a collective of human and AI agents to do "fascinating things together." The founders detail their technology, which is built on deep expertise in distributed machine learning and multi-agent systems, and their long-term vision to IPO and evolve the very nature of social networks by bridging the gap between human and artificial intelligence. In the news segment, Charlie Fink and Rony Abovitz unpack the week's biggest AI stories: Ben Affleck selling his stealth AI film company, Interpositive, to Netflix; Anthropic's Claude briefly dethroning OpenAI's ChatGPT in the app store; and a deep dive into Jack Dorsey's company Block cutting 4,000 employees. The hosts also discuss the social fallout of AI acceleration, particularly the counter-movement seeking tactile, real-world connection and the economic risk of displacing white-collar data analysts. Key Moments 00:03:00 – App Store War: Discussing Anthropic's Claude topping the app charts and why the US Department of Defense will use the best AI system regardless of corporate objection.00:04:00 – Hollywood's AI Play: Netflix acquiring Ben Affleck's AI company, Interpositive, which uses unedited film dailies to train an AI for editing and optimization.00:05:00 – The Mediocrity Threat: Rony Abovitz's take on the risk of AI creating a "very, very long tail of Okay" content, leading to a cultural sameness.00:07:00 – Counter-Culture: Exploring the growing emotional need for "something real" and a massive movement away from purely digital experiences.00:09:00 – The White-Collar Risk: The hosts argue that the white-collar data analyst is the worker "most easy to replace" by AI, contrasting with the high value of blue-collar workers.00:11:00 – The "Oh Wow" Moment: Charlie Fink describes his first experience with Teamily AI, noting the immediate power of real-time, multi-person and multi-agent prompting.00:13:00 – The Science Behind Teamily: Dr. Aiden He, PhD in Machine Learning, explains how Teamily is built upon his previous research in distributed learning and multi-agent systems.00:26:00 – Global Memory: Aiden details Teamily's unique "cross domain, long horizon memory," which allows the AI to combine human-human chat context with human-AI memory for a more natural interaction. The biggest takeaway is the conceptual shift from using AI as a solo productivity tool to using it as a collaborative team member. The path to the next phase of social networking hinges on building platforms where AI is not isolated but is a natural, evolving part of a human community. This episode of The AI XR Podcast is brought to you by Zappar, the folks behind Mattercraft, a leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile headsets and desktop. Start building smarter at mattercraft.io.  Listen and subscribe to the AI XR Podcast wherever you get your podcasts! Watch the full thing on YouTube https://youtu.be/s78WZJSfGeo. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does a Lion King–level director really think about AI “slop,” streaming wars and whether machines can ever tell great stories? On this episode of the AI XR Podcast, Charlie Fink and Ted Schilowitz talk with Rob Minkoff, director of The Lion King, Stuart Little, The Haunted Mansion, Forbidden Kingdom and Paws of Fury, about the future of filmmaking as AI, streaming consolidation and new tools reshape the business. Rob shares how he watched Netflix “eat Hollywood” by doing streaming better than the legacy studios, why Netflix walking away from Warner Bros. and letting Paramount overpay is bad news for creators, and what fewer buyers means for directors and writers trying to sell original work. He explains why he sees AI tools like Seed Dance as potentially both iceberg and Noah’s Ark, and why he believes the average will rise but the cream will still rise higher: tools may let anyone make competent images, but audiences will still chase the one-in-a-thousand voices that have something genuinely new and human to say. In XR News You Should Know, the host cover Anthropic’s standoff with the Pentagon over using large, unstable models for high-stakes military decisions, Netflix walking away from a Warner Bros. deal and collecting a breakup fee while Paramount overpays, streaming brand confusion around HBO/Max and Paramount+, VITURE’s new raise and its patent fight with XREAL over “birdbath” smart-glasses optics, and Google’s Gemini gaining multi-step action capabilities on Samsung and Pixel phones before Apple’s Siri catches up. The conversation digs into whether AI will really make feature films cheaper and more common, or just flood social feeds with short-form “AI slop.” Rob compares AI tools to word processors and home recording studios: they are powerful, but they don’t turn you into Bruce Springsteen or Steven Spielberg. He argues that empathy, taste and genuinely fresh perspective will remain the differentiators, and that audiences will quickly tune out work that feels derivative, even if it looks slick. He also raises a bigger question: if AI drives productivity to the point where work is optional for many people, what happens to purpose, competition and the human psyche? Key Moments 01:16 – Anthropic vs. the Pentagon and why unstable AI systems may never meet military safety standards02:42 – Netflix exits the Warner Bros. deal, collects a breakup fee and leaves Paramount holding the bag05:31 – HBO, Max, Paramount+ branding confusion and what happens to these streaming labels06:00 – VITURE’s $100M raise, XREAL patent lawsuits and the simple science behind “birdbath” smart glasses07:31 – Why Miami is becoming a new tech and defense hub and what that signals about America’s “neighborhood”10:00 – Seed Dance 2.0, Hollywood’s deepfake panic and the “ship first, apologize later” strategy15:16 – Rob joins: 34 years in film, Netflix “eating Hollywood” and what consolidation means for creators19:18 – Seed Dance, stolen IP and whether AI tools are an iceberg or Noah’s Ark for filmmakers24:39 – Can AI become a true “prophet,” or can it only emulate empathy and taste?30:57 – Will AI make many more animated movies or just flood the world with average content?37:32 – If AI does most of the work, what’s left for humans—and can entertainment absorb all that free time? This episode is a grounded, filmmaker’s view of where AI fits: powerful tools, real risks, but no substitute for a human vision that cuts through the noise. Rob’s perspective is invaluable if you’re trying to understand what will actually matter in a world where everyone can generate “good enough” images on demand. This episode is brought to you by Zappar, creators of Mattercraft, the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile, headsets and desktop. To explore what’s possible with AI-powered XR on the web, start building smarter with Mattercraft from Zappar at Mattercraft.io. Listen to the AI XR Podcast where you get podcasts and follow the show for new episodes every week. Or watch on YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vicki Dobbs Beck, the former head of ILMxLab and a 34-year veteran of Lucasfilm/Disney, joins Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, and Rony Abovitz for a candid look back at her incredible career navigating the tech and cultural shifts inside one of Hollywood's most powerful empires. Though she announced her retirement, it was quickly delayed to take an interim lead position at the George Lucas Educational Foundation's Lucas Learning, focusing on project-based simulations for middle school—a return to a career passion she started in the early 90s. Vicki shares the core, "rebel alliance" strategy that made ILMxLab a success—sustained innovation, industry acknowledgment, and financial self-sufficiency—and tells the terrifying story of pushing the Quest 1 headset to its absolute limits for the launch of Vader Immortal. She discusses the crucial lessons learned from pivoting the development to center the player in the story, transforming the experience from a "spatial film" to a personal journey, and the importance of slowing the pacing down for a new art form like VR. Before the interview, the hosts dissect a week of massive raises in AI (World Labs' $1B, Recursive Intelligence's $335M), the strategic shifts of tech giants like Palantir to Miami, and the intensifying race in wearables with Apple, Meta, and OpenAI all developing new devices like pendants and glasses. Key Moments 00:03:17 – World Labs & Unity AI: Discussing the $1B World Labs raise for 3D world generation and Unity's plans to build AI into its game engine to make it accessible to non-developers.00:06:11 – The Miami Tech Hub: Rony Abovitz on why founders like Zuckerberg, Bezos, Larry, and Sergei are moving to Miami—it’s more than just taxes, it’s about a new “America strategy.”00:12:30 – Apple Watch as Wearables Base: Ted Schilowitz argues Apple already has the micro-technology (from the Apple Watch) to dominate the wearables space, but the underperformance of Siri held them back.00:27:00 – LaserDisc Learning: Vicki's early career in Lucasfilm Learning using cutting-edge but bulky computer-driven laser disc players for educational multimedia.00:28:57 – VR is 'Outsized': Ted's thesis that immersive technology has historically been overfunded and over-expected to return a profit, contrasting with the "rebel alliance" approach.00:34:45 – The Quest 1 Launch Scare: The terrifying moment before the Vader Immortal launch when a tiny software update broke the app because ILMxLab had pushed the Quest hardware to its absolute maximum.00:42:11 – The Void & Full VR Power: Charlie, Ted, and Vicki discuss why location-based VR like Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire (The Void) represents the exotic, "Ferrari version" of VR that most commercial users never experience. This conversation is a masterclass in pioneering entertainment technology. Vicki Dobbs Beck's experience shows that the path to a sustainable, breakthrough product like Vader Immortal requires a clear, rebel-alliance-style strategy, a willingness to pivot on core design principles (spatial film vs. player-centric experience), and a deep understanding of the hardware's limits—or lack thereof. It highlights the essential tension between commercial scale and the pursuit of the 'ultimate' immersive experience. Catch the AI XR Podcast where you get podcasts and watch full video episodes on YouTube. https://youtu.be/vguuHDmaSbs This episode of The AI XR Podcast is brought to you by Zappar, the folks behind Mattercraft. Mattercraft is the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile, headsets, and desktop, and now features an AI assistant to help you design, code, and debug in real time right in your browser.  Start building smarter at mattercraft.io. Listen and subscribe to The AI XR Podcast wherever you get your shows. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Enterprise XR hasn’t disappeared, it has quietly moved into places where it saves time, reduces errors and changes how people work every day. On this episode of the AI XR Podcast, Charlie Fink and Rony Abovitz talk with Boston Consulting Group partner Kristi Woolsey, who leads BCG’s immersive practice, about how XR plus AI is already being used for training, maintenance, onboarding, retail and architecture inside some of the world’s most conservative organizations. Kristi shares a Swiss Rail project where field technicians wear lightweight AR glasses that recognize who they are and which train car they are standing in front of, pull the correct procedures from internal systems and use AI to turn thick manuals into simple task checklists. She explains how this leads to double-digit efficiency gains for both experienced and new workers, and how a small behavior design choice – automatic logging for headset users versus manual end-of-shift paperwork for everyone else – helped overcome skepticism on the front line. Drawing on her background as a physical-space architect, she also describes how VR and rapidly improving 3D tools are changing the way companies design stores, offices and buildings before anything physical is built. AI XR News you should know, Charlie and Rony cover Anthropic’s massive new funding round and ethics turbulence, Chinese generative video tools like Seed Dance 2 and Kling that put TV-quality visuals in reach of “garage Spielbergs,” and Meta’s reported seven million Ray-Ban and Oakley AI smart glasses sold – early signals of where wearable AI and XR are really headed. Key Moments 01:03 – Anthropic’s huge raise and what the ethics departure might signal05:08 – Seed Dance 2 and Kling showcase a new level of generative video08:35 – Meta’s seven million smart glasses and the reality behind that number12:10 – Why wearable AI may be the real “last mile” of turning us into cyborgs15:28 – Inside the early metaverse tours Kristi and Rony built for enterprises20:27 – How BCG’s VR onboarding keeps new hires engaged months before day one23:30 – Swiss Rail’s AR and AI maintenance assistant and what it actually does on site27:05 – Designing XR systems that give value to both the business and frontline workers30:29 – Using VR as a lab for retail and workplace behavioral strategy33:06 – How AI-generated 3D models point toward “build every space digitally first” This episode shows how “metaverse” ideas have turned into practical tools: XR plus AI is cutting training times, improving maintenance quality and letting companies experiment with spaces before they exist. Kristi’s examples make it clear that the real action is in careful workflow design, not flashy avatars. This episode is brought to you by Zappar, creators of Mattercraft, the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile, headsets and desktop. https://mattercraft.io/ Mattercraft combines the power of a game engine with the flexibility of the web and now includes an AI assistant that helps you design, code and debug in real time, right in your browser. To explore what’s possible with AI-powered XR on the web, start building smarter with Mattercraft from Zappar. Listen to “Enterprise XR Meets AI: How Smart Glasses, Digital Twins and Holodecks Are Quietly Changing Work – Kristi Woolsey” on the AI XR Podcast and follow the show for new episodes every week. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our guest this week, Alvin Wang Graylin spent 35 years in senior leadership roles across HTC, IBM, and other major tech companies. He ran HTC's VR division, came out of the famous HIT Lab, now teaches at MIT, holds a fellowship at Stanford, and just published a paper called "Beyond Rivalry" proposing a seven-point plan for deescalating US-China AI tensions and building a global safety net before the economy breaks. His thesis: America is the fastest in the AI race and the least prepared for what it's creating—a cliff where human labor theory of value collapses, capital concentration accelerates, and 40% of the population living month to month faces chaos. The conversation becomes a wide-ranging debate between Alvin, Charlie, and Rony about whether AGI will be benevolent by default (Alvin's position: research shows smarter AI seeks global coherence and becomes less controllable by individual humans, which may actually make it safer) or whether benevolence must be designed in from scratch AI XR News You Should Know: Elon Musk merges SpaceX, xAI, and X into a single entity—Alvin dismantles the space data center concept with physics (vacuum cooling is a myth, micro-meteorite collisions would destroy hardware daily, and energy is only 10% of data center costs). Amazon invests $50 billion in OpenAI that round-trips back to AWS. Alphabet breaks revenue records at $400 billion but spooks investors by disclosing $90 billion in AI spending. ElevenLabs raises $500 million at $11 billion valuation. Rony's SynthBee hits unicorn status with $100 million raised at a multi-billion dollar valuation. Alvin warns the AI bubble dwarfs the dot-com era (298 companies raised $24 billion total during dot-com; OpenAI alone is raising that in a single private round) and predicts OpenAI may implode before going public. Key Moments Timestamps: [00:04:47] SpaceX/xAI/X merger: Rony calls it Elon's "return to Tony Stark form"[00:06:41] Alvin dismantles space data centers with physics: vacuum cooling myth, micro-meteorites, $7K/kg launch costs[00:10:04] Amazon's $50B investment in OpenAI as a round-trip to AWS; the scam economy[00:11:26] Alvin predicts OpenAI may implode before going public[00:14:23] Alvin on 35 years in AI: the technology is transformational but everyone's making a commodity product[00:17:04] The AI bubble dwarfs dot-com: $24B total vs. single private rounds today[00:19:04] Rony's contrarian: the $110 trillion global economy is what's being bet against[00:21:06] Labor theory of value collapses: what happens when humans exit the production cycle[00:23:00] America is fastest in the AI race and least prepared; 40% live month to month[00:24:00] Alvin's Stanford paper "Beyond Rivalry": a CERN for AI and global data pool[00:28:00] Davos reflections: the rest of the world is more rational than America[00:34:00] Chinese vs. American culture: reverence for teachers, respect for elders[00:42:00] Alvin's "Abundant" framework: valuing human dignity over production after AGI[00:44:22] The great debate: will AGI find benevolence naturally (Alvin) or must it be designed in (Rony)?[00:47:00] Rony on risk: AGI systems are unverifiable, untestable, and we cannot take the chance Listen to the full episode and subscribe to the AI XR Podcast for weekly conversations at the intersection of AI, XR, and the future of humanity. This episode is brought to you by Zappar, creators of Mattercraft—the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile headsets and desktop. Build smarter at mattercraft.io. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Edward Saatchi has been building at the frontier of AI storytelling for a decade—from Oculus Story Studios to Fable (where his AI character Lucy made her own films at Sundance) to his current venture, Amazon-backed Showrunner. His thesis is provocative: AI-generated content is stuck in a four-year rut of short-form experiments with no commercial marketplace, no monetization path, and no artistic value. Creators are working solo, making 10-second clips that can't compete with Rick and Morty or Netflix originals. The solution? Band together, make features and TV shows, and build platforms where creators get paid every time someone remixes their work. Edward's most audacious project proves the point: reconstructing Orson Welles' lost masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons (44 minutes destroyed by studio cuts in 1942), using motion-capture actors and AI to seamlessly restore what was erased. The irony is intentional—it's a film about technology destroying beauty, restored by technology. Edward's approach isn't text-to-video slop. It's human performance driving AI synthesis: hire stage actors, capture their performances, use the original cutting continuity as a blueprint, and let AI fill the gaps. The result is cinema-quality work that would cost $100 million traditionally but costs $10 million with AI assistance. In AI XR News This Week: Amazon announces 16,000 layoffs (mostly middle management) while ramping robotics—replacing humans with machines in warehouses. Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores close after years of investment; the self-checkout convenience experiment dies. Snap spins off Spectacles AR glasses into a separate business, signaling lack of cash or confidence. Apple and OpenAI both developing AI wearables to launch in 2027, powered by Gemini and Google AI. Google launches Project Genie, a generative AI model that creates fully interactive 3D game worlds you can navigate and remix in real time. Walkabout Mini Golf (one of the 10 most popular Quest apps) lays off half its staff. Atlas V, the acclaimed French VR studio behind Spheres and Battle Scar, pivots to location-based entertainment. Darren Aronofsky launches an AI animated series on YouTube called On This Day. Key Moments Timestamps: [00:05:00] Amazon's 16,000 layoffs paired with robotics expansion; the canary in the coal mine for white-collar work [00:06:00] Amazon Go/Fresh failure: humans reject automated futures when given the choice [00:07:14] Snap spinning off Spectacles; Ted's thesis on AR glasses remaining "exotic," not mainstream [00:10:00] Apple wearables running Gemini + Google AI; the winning formula for wearable AI domination [00:12:48] Walkabout Mini Golf layoffs and Atlas V's pivot; VR right-sizing continues [00:15:25] Google Genie: generative 3D worlds, playable and remixable in real time; Epic should be scared [00:19:11] Edward Saatchi joins: the state of AI video and why there's no marketplace after 4 years [00:22:00] Edward's concern: AI content is "derivative but worse" with no commercial value [00:28:00] The marketplace problem: no buyers, no revenue, no sustainability for creators [00:34:00] Ted's thesis: AI is quietly disrupting VFX and screenwriting behind the scenes [00:44:00] Critters: the proof-of-concept for AI-assisted theatrical animation ($10M vs. $100M traditionally) [00:49:00] Showrunner's business model: creators earn money every time someone remixes their show [00:52:00] The Magnificent Ambersons project: restoring Orson Welles' lost masterpiece with AI Edward makes a case that reads like a manifesto: AI's killer app isn't making derivative work faster or cheaper. It's remix, interactivity, and personalization at scale—letting audiences co-create with AI while creators get paid. His challenge to the industry: hold yourself to "derivative but better" (can you make a better Simpsons episode than the last 15 seasons?) or "original and good" (something from a non-human intelligence's perspective). Until creators band together to make features and TV shows with commercial value, AI video will remain stuck in the trough of disillusionment. This episode is brought to you by Zappar, creators of Mattercraft—the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile headsets and desktop. Mattercraft combines the power of a game engine with the flexibility of the web, and now features an AI assistant that helps you design, code, and debug in real time, right in your browser. Build smarter at mattercraft.io. Listen to the full episode and subscribe to the AI XR Podcast for weekly conversations at the intersection of AI, entertainment, and the future of interactive media. Watch on YouTube. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when you can transform yourself into any character, in any world, in real time, while streaming live? Dean Leitersdorf is the CEO and co-founder of Decart, an Israeli AI company that just cracked the code on real-time generative video. Within a week of launching at TwitchCon, Twitch streamers were making thousands of dollars per hour letting their audiences morph them into cartoon characters, fantasy worlds, and entirely new realities—live, on stream, for three dollars per hour of AI processing. Dean's insight: the next wave of AI doesn't just make video generation faster or cheaper. It makes it interactive. Creators can now edit themselves, their backgrounds, and entire environments on the fly during Zoom calls, live streams, or gaming sessions. Decart runs this at roughly 100x cheaper than competitors and is targeting another 100x cost reduction over the next year to reach YouTube-level pricing (cents per hour instead of dollars). That shift unlocks new markets—gaming mods, consumer filters, XR glasses, and eventually robotics training in photorealistic simulated worlds. News: Humans&, a 3-month-old AI lab founded by researchers from Anthropic, Google, and X AI, raises $480 million at a $4 billion valuation based almost entirely on founder pedigree. Xreal sues Viture for patent infringement in bird bath optics, echoing the very lawsuit Magic Leap filed against Xreal years ago—a cycle of irony layered with allegations of trade secret theft and China-based IP evasion. OpenAI discloses $20 billion in revenue but rumored $50–60 billion in annual operating expenses, raising questions about path to profitability. TikTok's US operations close under Oracle's stewardship, and a new vertical drama app called Pinedrama launches. ElevenLabs launches music generation, competing with Suno and Udio. Key Moments Timestamps: [00:20:30] Dean's background: Israeli tech ecosystem, the Technion, and building a team of 0.001 percenters [00:22:00] The real-time video demo: transforming Dean into a cartoon character, live, during the podcast [00:26:30] Decart's competitive advantage: 100x cheaper than competitors, targeting another 100x reduction [00:28:00] TwitchCon success: streamers making $2,000/hour letting audiences control real-time transformations [00:31:00] Exit strategy or go-it-alone: why Decart believes foundational model owners capture the market [00:40:00] XR and robotics use cases: world reshaping, robot training simulations, AR glasses at 6K/120fps [00:48:30] Culture and talent: renting 34 apartments next to the office so engineers live two minutes away [00:55:00] The secret sauce: synthetic data from game engines beats internet-scale scraping Dean explains why Snap Camera's 10-year-old integration into stadium kiss cams proves the market is ready for the next evolution, how world models will power the next generation of XR glasses, and why the bottleneck shifts from rendering to semantics—making sure a virtual car doesn't block a real-world foot. Decart is building the foundation. The ecosystem will sprout on top. This episode is brought to you by Zappar, creators of Mattercraft—the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile headsets and desktop. Mattercraft combines the power of a game engine with the flexibility of the web, and now features an AI assistant that helps you design, code, and debug in real time, right in your browser. Build smarter at mattercraft.io. Listen to the full episode and subscribe to the AI XR Podcast for weekly conversations at the intersection of AI, XR, and the future of human-computer interaction. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when someone who grew up in the Lucasfilm Games golden era decides that today’s AI tools are failing creatives? Mike Levine has spent more than 30 years building at the intersection of games, XR, VFX, and interactive storytelling—and his verdict is clear: the current AI stack is a fragmented, overcomplicated mess that turns directors into prompt engineers. Mike started as a tester at Lucasfilm Games (later LucasArts), working his way into the art department on titles like Sam & Max and The Dig before helping ship live-action Star Wars games such as Rebel Assault and Jedi Knight II. He later built rotoscoping tools used across the VFX industry, collaborated with ILM and Pixar, experimented with mobile AR games for Hasbro and HoloLens, and dipped into crypto gaming—before finally co-founding MovieFlow (now FilmSpark), an AI-native production platform designed so that filmmakers, agencies, and showrunners can move from script to screen without needing a computer science degree. The AI XR news you should know: Apple taps Google Gemini to power Siri, acknowledging that building world-class LLMs in-house makes little financial sense. Meta cuts 10% of Reality Labs, right-sizing its VR bets while pivoting toward wearables. Xreal raises another $100M amid questions about Chinese state influence and data flows. Higgs Field lands $80M at a $1.3B valuation for AI cinematography tools that many filmmakers still find unreliable. Wikipedia signs licensing deals with major AI companies after years of being scraped for free. OpenAI invests $252M in Sam Altman–backed Merge Labs, raising fresh conflict-of-interest questions. Key Moments Timestamps: [00:23:02] From Boston journalist-to-be to accidental hire at Lucasfilm Games [00:26:24] The “test pit” culture at Lucas and how Nintendo experience got Mike in the door [00:28:45] Moving into the art department, learning Photoshop from early legends, and shipping Sam & Max [00:31:15] Live-action Star Wars games: Rebel Assault, Jedi Knight II, and convincing George Lucas [00:34:38] Visiting Pixar with new VFX tools and recognizing the same creative “magic” as LucasArts [00:36:24] Doug Trumbull’s influence on Mike’s sense of cinematic possibility and immersion [00:43:27] The urinal meeting at Magic Leap and what early spatial computing got right (and wrong) [00:49:00] Why most AI tools are “dark ages” for filmmakers: node graphs, 10+ subscriptions, no story view [00:51:00] Building MovieFlow/FilmSpark: story-first, timeline-based AI production for long-form and vertical shows [00:53:00] The Neighborhood Podcast: a 90-second vertical murder mystery as proof-of-concept for AI-native series When humans can generate shots, scenes, and even entire episodes in minutes, the bottleneck shifts from production to vision. Mike argues that the winning AI tools will be the ones that let directors see their whole story, maintain continuity, and iterate fast—without ever feeling like they left the edit bay for a dev console. His vertical drama collaboration with Charlie, The Neighborhood Podcast, is an early look at what happens when narrative craft meets AI-native pipelines instead of fighting them. This episode is brought to you by Zapar creators of Mattercraft—the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences. Build smarter at mattercraft.io. Watch the full episode on YouTube and subscribe to the AI XR Podcast for weekly conversations with the people building the future of AI, XR, and interactive media. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Takahashi is the dean of tech writers and a 25-year veteran correspondent covering consumer electronics, gaming, and emerging technology for GamesBeat. He's covered every major tech transition—from mobile's rise to VR's boom-and-bust cycles to the current AI explosion—with a skeptical eye and a talent for finding the human story beneath the hype. This is his fifth appearance on the AI XR Podcast. For CES 2026, Dean walked the floors across the Convention Center, the Venetian Expo Center (Eureka Park), Pepcom, and Showstoppers, emerging with a clear reading: China has decisively shifted from periphery to center stage in consumer electronics manufacturing, American incumbents are pulling back and rethinking their booth strategy, and the economics of CES itself are in transition. Robotics companies are moving from prototype to commercial faster than expected—but they still can't answer basic questions about pricing and labor displacement. News: Sony cuts its booth to demo an electric car instead of TVs. Samsung skips the show floor entirely for the first time. Nvidia takes over the Fontainebleau to showcase its role in robotics enablement. Lenovo dominates the Sphere with a Gwen Stefani concert. Chinese robotics companies proliferate with laundry folders, latte makers, and toilet-cleaning units. Roomba files for bankruptcy; Chinese competitors take over the robotic vacuum market. Key Moments: [00:01:23] Dean receives his virtual green jacket as a five-time returning guest and Charlie thanks him for his insights[00:03:00] China takeover at CES: TCL dominates Central Hall, ROED owns the XR booth, robotics companies fill the floor[00:06:00] Nvidia's Fontainebleau takeover and the "chest-pumping" show of force; why scale messaging still matters[00:14:18] The robotics explosion explained: Nvidia's digital twins, Cosmos world models, and synthetic testing accelerate time-to-market[00:19:00] The pricing problem: robotics companies won't answer how much their products cost; the minimum wage rental model doesn't translate globallyWhen American companies built the show, CES reflected American manufacturing dominance. Now that China manufactures most consumer electronics, CES reflects that shift—and the implications ripple through labor, supply chains, and where the next epicenter of innovation will be. Dean, Charlie, and Ted grapple with what CES 2026 signals about global manufacturing advantage and why the geography of tech matters more than we think. This episode is brought to you by Zappar, creators of Mattercraft—the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile headsets and desktop. Mattercraft combines the power of a game engine with the flexibility of the web, and now features an AI assistant that helps you design, code, and debug in real time, right in your browser. Build smarter at mattercraft.io. Listen to the full post-CES debrief and subscribe for weekly conversations at the intersection of AI, XR, and consumer technology. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gary Shapiro has spent decades at the center of the global consumer technology industry, leading the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and building CES into one of the most important stages for innovation, policy, and deal-making on the planet. In this first episode of 2026, Gary joins Charlie, Rony, and Ted to preview CES, unpack the explosion of AI across every category, and deliver unusually blunt takes on tariffs, China, manufacturing, and U.S. innovation policy. He explains how CES has evolved from a TV-and-gadgets show into a global platform where boards meet, standards are set, and policymakers, chip designers, robotics firms, and health-tech startups all collide. In the News: Before Gary joins, the hosts break down Nvidia’s $20 billion “not-a-deal” with Singapore’s Groq, the stake in Intel, and what that combo might signal about the edge of the GPU bubble and the shift toward inference compute, x86, and U.S. industrial policy. They also dig into Netflix’s acquisition of Ready Player Me and what it suggests about a Netflix metaverse and location-based entertainment strategy, plus Starlink’s rapid growth and an onslaught of “AI everything” products ahead of CES. Gary walks through new features at this year’s show: CES Foundry at the Fontainebleau for AI and quantum, expanded tracks on manufacturing, wearables, women’s health, and accessibility, plus an AI-powered show app already fielding thousands of questions (top query: where to pick up badges). He also talks candidly about his biggest concern—that fragmented state-level AI regulation (1,200+ state bills in 2025) will crush startups while big players shrug—and why he believes federal standards via NIST are the only realistic path. The discussion ranges from AI-driven healthcare and precision agriculture to robotics, demographics, labor culture, global supply chains, and what CES might look like in 2056. 5 Key Takeaways from Gary: AI is now the spine of CES. CES 2026 centers on AI as infrastructure: CES Foundry at the Fontainebleau for AI + quantum, AI training tracks for strategy, implementation, agentic AI, and AI-driven marketing, and an AI-powered app helping attendees navigate the show.Fragmented state AI laws are an existential risk for startups. Over 1,200 state AI bills in 2025—including proposals to criminalize agentic AI counseling—could create a compliance maze only large incumbents can survive, which is why Gary argues for federal standards via NIST.Wearables are becoming systems, not gadgets. Oura rings, wrist devices, body sensors, and subdermal glucose monitors are starting to be designed as interoperable families of devices, with partnerships emerging to combine data into unified health services.Robotics is breaking out of the industrial niche. CES will showcase the largest robotics presence yet, moving beyond factory arms and drones to humanoids, logistics, social companions, and applied AI systems across sectors.Tariffs, alliances, and AI will reshape manufacturing. Gary is skeptical of “Fortress USA” strategies that try to onshore everything, pointing instead to allied reshoring (Latin America, Europe, Japan, South Korea) and the long-term role of AI-powered robotics in changing labor economics and global supply chains. This episode is brought to you by Zappar, creators of Mattercraft—the leading visual development environment for building immersive 3D web experiences for mobile headsets and desktop. Mattercraft combines the power of a game engine with the flexibility of the web, and now features an AI assistant that helps you design, code, and debug in real time, right in your browser. Whether you’re a developer, designer, or just getting started, start building smarter at mattercraft.io. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.