The AI XR Podcast.

Ted and Charlie open with a quieter AI news week, giving them room to dig into XR hardware, including hands-on impressions of two new smart glasses, a Norway story on camera glasses restrictions, the shutdown of the XR Association, backlash over Meta’s Muse app, and a tour through AI’s fast-moving film scene.Charles Melcher, founder of the Future of Storytelling summit and author of the book of the same name, joins to talk about two decades spent studying how people want to experience stories. Charles explains why he thinks VR never quite broke through for mainstream audiences, walks through his theory of the “actience,” his term for audiences who now expect to participate rather than just watch, and makes the case that AI’s biggest opportunity in entertainment isn’t visual effects but deeply personalized, responsive storytelling. The conversation wraps with a tour through some of the best immersive entertainment happening right now, from the Sphere and ABBA Voyage to Meow Wolf and Vegas’s underground escape-room scene.Key Moments: [00:39] Hands-on impressions of Samsung’s Aura vs. Snap’s Specs [03:29] The ergonomics problem still holding back smart glasses [06:39] Norway’s new restrictions on camera glasses [08:26] The XR Association shuts down [10:00] Meta’s Muse app and the backlash over its user dossiers [11:47] A tour through the fast-moving world of AI filmmaking [18:00] Charles Melcher joins — the origin of Future of Storytelling [24:15] Why VR never had its mainstream moment [39:00] Charles’s concept of the “actience” [42:33] A tour of the Sphere, ABBA Voyage, and Meow Wolf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cortney Harding steps in as guest co-host this week, joining Charlie to unpack a genuinely strong Meta Connect, new occluded VR glasses aimed squarely at the Vision Pro, a camera-free Ray-Ban, and Muse AI's surprise climb to the top of the app stores. From there, the conversation turns to Disney's newly created CTO role, the quiet fate of its big-money bets on Epic Games and Sora, and Jeffrey Katzenberg's open letter arguing entertainment has always been a technology business. They close out the news with a sharp exchange on Amazon's push into drone delivery and a pointed critique of DraftKings' use of AI to target its most engaged, and most vulnerable, customers.Simon Horsman and Daniel Wood, co-founders of Quilty.app, join to talk about building an AI-powered script coverage tool for screenwriters who have no access to Hollywood's traditional gatekeepers. The two walk through how Quilty scores a script the way a studio story analyst would, the leaderboard system built to surface strong writing, and a striking real-world comparison Simon shares from his years running a film fund: a big-budget historical epic north of $220 million versus a hybrid AI production covering similar ground for under a million dollars. The conversation closes with how Quilty is trying to connect writers directly to producers in a system that's traditionally shut most people out.Key Moments: [01:35] A confident, glitch-free Meta Connect and what it signals [11:35] Disney creates a company-wide CTO role, hired from Character AI [13:35] The quiet status of Disney's Epic Games and Sora deals [15:35] Jeffrey Katzenberg's open letter on tech and entertainment [19:35] The backlash brewing over Amazon's drone delivery push [21:35] DraftKings, AI, and the ethics of targeting engaged gamblers [24:35] Simon Horsman and Daniel Wood join to introduce Quilty.app [30:35] A real budget comparison: $220M studio epic vs. under $1M hybrid AI film [34:35] How Quilty scores scripts and connects writers to producersBrought to you by Zappar and Mattercraft, the leading visual development environment for immersive 3D web experiences. Start building at mattercraft.io. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, this episode opens on a somber note: Charlie, Rony, and Ted remember where they were in 2001 and reflect on where they are now. By happenstance, Ted is actually in New York right now & is joined by the team behind GLO, a mixed-reality graffiti tour running through the streets of Manhattan on Magic Leap 2 headsets, live from their office. After a brief catch-up with friends (and a promo code waiting for you at the end of this description), the news turns dark fast. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's resignation, and his warning that AI could kill us all within a decade, sparks a pointed debate about why the AI industry has no equivalent of the FAA or FDA, and why "regulate it like we regulate everything else dangerous" isn't the same as stopping innovation.Paulina Borsook, former Wired writer and author of the newly re-released Cyberselfish: a Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech, joins to talk about the 26-year throughline connecting her original critique of Silicon Valley's libertarian culture to today's AI safety crisis. The conversation covers the amorality she identified in tech back in the 90s & 2000s, some candid psychological reads on the Tech Fascists of today, and a shared frustration with "spreadsheet philanthropy" and effective altruism's obsession with measurable ROI over genuine selflessness.Key Moments:[07:15] A live mixed-reality graffiti tour through Manhattan with the GLO.city team[15:32] Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's resignation and AI risk warnings[19:30] Why AI has no FAA or FDA equivalent[22:50] Paulina Borsook joins as today's guest to discuss the 26-year legacy of her book, Cyberselfish[30:22] Silicon Valley's libertarian culture, then and now[57:27] A psychological read on Zuckerberg's philanthropic reversals[1:01:00] Effective altruism, "spreadsheet philanthropy," and doing good without an ROICyberselfish by Paulina Borsook is being re-printed via Tin House in 2026 and is available for purchase on September 15th. Find out more on where you can purchase the book in your territory at https://www.cyberselfish.com/.Special offer: Get 25% off your mixed-reality graffiti tour of New York with promo code AIXR25. Visit www.glo.city, click Book Now to select your date and time, and enter AIXR25 at checkout. Follow Glo.City on Instagram, Tiktok, and X at @GLOdotcity.Brought to you by Zappar and Mattercraft, the leading visual development environment for immersive 3D web experiences. Start building at mattercraft.io. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As director of Keyhole, Dave Lorenzini delivered the 3D Earth zooms that ran on CNN during the 2003 Iraq War — netting five million users in a month. Sergey Brin was one of them. Google bought the company and poured in billions to build, fuel, and serve maps. As Google Earth, it forever changed how we relate to space.From there: pioneering work on Google Glass, AR platforms, and running an immersive XR lab in Europe for Draw & Code exploring the future of spaces, places, and faces. Today Dave directs Quantum Studio, building World Agent and 4D ID — the "DNS for real space," an addressing layer where every place, object, and moment gets a name AI systems can agree on. His thesis: the next decade of AI won't run on better maps. AI needs an operating system for reality. Not a map. Not a database. A living, queryable foundation where every place on Earth answers for itself.AI XR News: The OpenAI vs. Musk trial continued with damaging testimony from Mira Murati and Greg Brockman. Anthropic struck an unholy alliance with xAI's Colossus compute. GameStop bid for eBay. Colin Angle is back with Familiar, an AI robot pet. Coinbase cut staff. Ask.com finally died. VRChat hit 100,000 concurrent daily users in Japan.Key Moments:[00:03:34] AWE Long Beach in 30 days: Dave on the board, Snap glasses expected, 400 speakers and 250 exhibitors[00:20:10] 30 AI glasses coming: why the near future belongs to audio-first, AI-powered smart glasses[00:25:34] Keyhole origin story: satellite imagery, $25K/sq mile, Sergey Brin, and a $500M/year acquisition[00:37:30] Google Glass, Luxottica, and why Google blinked when it could have been 10 years ahead of Meta[00:40:00] XR vs. rockets: why building for the human brain is harder than getting to MarsBrought to you by Zappar, the company behind Mattercraft — the leading visual development environment for immersive 3D web experiences. Start building at mattercraft.io.Subscribe to the AI XR Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/weNANIIo7EA Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Akash Nigam has been building Genies since 2017 with a conviction that avatars will be the visual layer of the internet. As CEO of Genies, he's assembled IP partners including the NBA, MLB, Sanrio, and Kakao, with more major studios and agencies set to announce before the end of May. The pitch: every app, game, website, and celebrity is going to have an AI personality. Genies wants to be the framework that gives all of those personalities a face.What separates Genies is portability and scale. A character that took eight weeks in 2021 now takes ten minutes. Staying stylized rather than photorealistic isn't just aesthetic — it's what got Hollywood to the table. Talent doesn't want deepfakes. They want a Genie: trained on private IP data, capable of one-on-one fan relationships that make Instagram feel thin.AI XR News: Tim Cook stepped aside as Apple CEO with hardware chief John Ternus taking over. Humanoid robots ran a half marathon in Beijing while a Sony robot defeated professional table tennis players, opening a conversation about Chinese robotics capabilities and AI data infiltration risks the US is still underestimating.Key Moments:[00:06:45] Tim Cook steps aside: what the Apple leadership transition signals about wearable AI[00:12:00] Humanoid robots and table tennis: China's robotics flex[00:13:00] The data infiltration argument: open-source risk and a warning for the US[00:24:00] The IP land grab: NBA, MLB, Sanrio, Kakao, Naver Webtoon[00:28:00] From photo to avatar in 10 minutes: how Genies' generation pipeline scaled[00:32:00] Why Instagram feels thin and how Genies enables one-on-one fan relationships[00:49:00] 80 people, $150M raised, and why Bob Iger sees Genies as the future of DisneyIf AI personalities are going to be everywhere, what do they look like? Akash has been building the answer for nearly a decade. Q3 is when it goes live.Brought to you by Zappar and Mattercraft — the leading visual development environment for immersive 3D web experiences. Mattercraft now includes an AI assistant for design, code, and debugging in real time. Start building at mattercraft.io.Subscribe to the AI XR Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, or watch on YouTube - https://youtu.be/Fs8h2KcJclQ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.