Lenovo’s Head of Virtual Reality speaks on the paradigm shift of GenAI in XR
In 2024, XR technology stacks, software, and hardware greatly matured. At the same time, emerging generative AI technology also came along to prop up AR/VR/MR content creation for enterprises and consumers.
Many businesses and even seasoned developers are still learning how to create real-time 3D spatial applications and content. Creating enterprise-ready XR content can take a lot of time, money, and knowledge.
However, those requirements are reducing as genAI gains further public understanding and support, thanks to auto-generation abilities that supercharge the adoption and creation of enterprise-grade XR solutions.
XR, genAI, and related technology stacks are complex spaces that require expertise to analyze and understand how the technologies fit into today’s business world and, therefore, everyday life. To speak on this subject, Lenovo’s Head of Virtual Reality, Jason McGuigan, joined XR Today to share his knowledge on the intersection of genAI and XR.
McGuigan added:
“Lenovo is very focused on our ‘AI for All’ strategy. Everything that we touch within our technology stack, from our AI-enabled PCs down to the data center as well as our work in the XR space, are all being enhanced with genAI. We’re excited to bring these groundbreaking technologies to our customers”
AI to Break Down the Barriers of XR Content Creation
McGuigan explained that the emerging technology sector “changes so quickly,” meaning businesses must “stay engaged.” Overall, McGuigan explains that genAI is an exciting area because it fundamentally changes the “ways that we’re going to interact with the world.”
“This is not just a new computing paradigm; this is not something that’s just going to be a part of our lives if we choose to interact with it; it will get integrated into every aspect of our daily lives,” remarked McGuigan.
McGuigan continued:
“One of Lenovo’s core roles is to make sure that we talk to customers about how we use AI responsibly. Also, we make sure that they’re engaged and ahead of the curve when this technology becomes very, very ubiquitous. Generative AI is everywhere, and we see XR and AI as companionable technologies.”
According to McGuigan, Lenvovo is noticing the valuable utility of genAI around XR content creation, optimization, and personalization, therefore providing targeted data and results for teams and individual users. Lenovo is identifying how genAI-powered XR can create new opportunities in use cases such as industrial training.
GenAI can enhance production workflows for creating immersive enterprise services “from a designer perspective, a programming perspective, and everything in between,” he added.
McGuigan said, “We are truly nearing the day when a new developer, someone who may have never developed anything for XR before, can interact with an AI and create an experience by using verbal prompts.”
McGuigan continued:
“XR content as a whole is very difficult to create, and there’s a small number of people that are really good at making it, but it’s not quite open and available, so this democratizes some of the tools, and it expedites the powers of those individuals that do have it. It makes it so more people can get involved in the creative process, which means that there will be more specialized content in the XR field, which will create more adoption of the technology.”
“It’s breaking down the barriers for people that can get involved in these processes,” added McGuigan, who noted that AI can save time, energy, and getting customer approvals-therefore making production pipelines “tighter and much more efficient.”
AI and The Metaverse
The Metaverse was a popular technology term in years past; however, the generative AI trend quickly overtook its fame in early 2024.
Despite shifting publicity away from consumer Metaverse promises, genAI is also supercharging the future of the Metaverse promise i.e. RT3D, immersive, multi-user services.
McGuigan explained that the Metaverse is not a “singular destination, but it’s like the Internet,” whereby users can jump between different spatial services. McGuigan added that the Metaverse will become a “deeper enhanced aspect of what the Internet is today, but in a spatial fashion,” whereby users can access entertainment, shopping, or workplace services in a 360 3D user interface.
GenAI helps translate non-immersive content into spatial content, filling in the gaps that create XR/Metaverse visualizations. McGuigan said, “The idea behind the Metaverse that we started talking about years ago was a fully realized world. We could interact with digital objects around us and treat it as a digital parallel. That was the hyped-up version of it. We quickly realized it’s just not feasible from any perspective.”
However, genAI again lowers the barrier to XR production, stated McGuigan, by enabling semi-automated content creation. Starting with an image, genAI can translate that to a 3D object, a 3D object into a 3D space, and a 3D space into a virtual space, “all of those things can happen on the back end before you pop your headset or glasses on.”
McGuigan continued:
“By removing that barrier with generative AI, we have a possibility of making a lot of those things become more realistic. Every website out there today could have spatial content developed for it on the fly by a back-end engine powered by genAI. It wouldn’t require a team of developers.”
The future is not set in stone, however. The emerging technology space is ever-changing, and how XR, AI, and the Metaverse may integrate into everyday life could look very different from expectations. Moreover, with more advanced and less invasive wearable hardware arriving, XR content will become more complex while also becoming more accessible. GenAI working in the backend will allow smaller devices to do more, creating a true paradigm shift in computing.
McGuigan remarked that technology and humankind will “meet at this point in the very near future where you pop on a device, you’ll visit a website and that spatial content will be there, ready and served just for you – all that becomes a reality with the combination of XR and Generative Artificial Intelligence”
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