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Kent Bye—host of the Voices of VR podcast and one of XR's most prolific journalists with over 1,680 published interviews—joins Charlie and Ted for a wide ranging conversation on the state of immersive storytelling, the ethics of AI, and why XR's future might be less about consumer headsets and more about embodied presence and human connection. Kent's decade-long commitment to documenting artists, creators, and developers at the ground level offers a counterpoint to hype-driven tech coverage, revealing the messy, vital ecosystem sustaining VR through festival circuits, location-based entertainment, and government-funded experimental projects that rarely make headlines.
The conversation opens with Jeff Bezos's new AI robotics company Prometheus, Amazon's one-to-one human-robot workforce parity, and the implications of industrial AI automation. Ted shares his recent appearance on cinematographer Roger Deakins's podcast, where they discussed AI as a creative tool rather than a threat—a perspective Kent echoes when discussing artists who use AI to critique AI's "colonizing force." Kent explains his philosophy of "boots on the ground" journalism inspired by Knight Ridder's Iraq War reporting, focusing on developers and creators closest to the work rather than corporate press releases.
Kent reveals why he's been lukewarm on smart glasses despite industry excitement—monocular displays give him headaches, his prescription is too strong for current hardware, and most importantly, there's no compelling narrative content yet. He contrasts this with VR's rich immersive storytelling at festivals like Venice Immersive, Sundance New Frontier, IDFA DocLab, and Tribeca, where government-funded European projects push the medium's boundaries in ways U.S. startups can't afford to explore. The discussion touches on Meta's Ray-Ban AI glasses, the impracticality of Meta's neural band input, and why Snap's developer platform remains the most interesting AR ecosystem despite limited consumer traction.
Thanks to our sponsors Zappar and Viture
New episodes every Tuesday.
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Neal Stephenson—legendary sci-fi author who coined "metaverse" in his 1992 novel Snow Crash—and Rebecca Barkin, co-founder of Lamina1, return to the AI XR Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about building a decentralized creator economy, launching their dystopian AI world-building project Artifact, and why blockchain might finally free creators from Big Tech's chokehold.
Joined by Charlie, Ted, and Rony, the discussion spans Neal's lost Magic Leap project, the resurrection of the open metaverse dream, and how decentralized platforms could flip Hollywood's power structure on its head.
Rebecca details Lamina1's journey from blockchain currency for the open metaverse to Spaces, a multimedia creator platform built on Ethereum that allows IP owners to retain control, set royalties, and build direct relationships with fans.
Think YouTube meets Discord, but on decentralized rails. The goal isn't socialism—it's a creative meritocracy where artists get equity in platforms they help build, instead of just one-time payouts while Netflix captures all the value.
Neal unpacks Artifact, Lamina1's first creative test case: a post-Singularity world where 12 competing mega-AIs fight over energy, copper, water, and GPUs while humans live in the interstices. Co-created with Weta Workshop using AI tools like World Labs' marble splats, the project invites fans to co-create lore, not just consume it. It's a living experiment in collaborative IP development—and proof that small teams with AI amplifiers can build Grand Theft Auto-scale worlds.
Big thanks to our sponsor Zappar.
Subscribe for weekly insider perspectives from veterans who aren't afraid to challenge Big Tech. New episodes every Tuesday. Watch full episodes on YouTube.
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Dr. Tom Furness—esteemed as the “Grandfather of VR”—brings seven decades of breakthrough invention, untold stories, and rare wisdom to the AI XR Podcast. In this episode, Tom traces the thread from making rocket fuel as a kid in North Carolina to pioneering the “Super Cockpit” for the Air Force, founding the HIT Lab, and launching 27+ spatial computing startups. His journey reminds us that big shifts in XR and AI are really about one thing: boosting the bandwidth between the brain and information.
Listen as Charlie and Ted tease out practical lessons from Tom’s career—how head-mounted displays and real-time simulation grew from a Pentagon skunkworks project to tools for pilots, surgeons, first responders, and kids who learn differently. Tom reveals how the “cockpit problem” was never about adding more gadgets, but about human-centered design—and why the next revolution in XR depends on soft skills, not just hardware. He shares how XR can teach memory, empathy, and “open the aperture” of the mind.
Guest HighlightsSubscribe for weekly insider perspectives from veterans who aren’t afraid to challenge Big Tech. New episodes every Tuesday. Watch full episodes on YouTube.
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Kirin Sinha, MIT math prodigy and founder/CEO of Illumix, embodies the vital intersection of AI, XR, and real-world relevance. On this episode, she unpacks the hard realities of spatial computing’s journey—from grinding through MIT at sixteen and “building the Iron Man desk as a senior project” to launching Five Nights at Freddy’s AR (garnering 60M+ downloads) and powering Disney/Six Flags location-based XR.
Sinha challenges the XR hype machine: “Location-based constraints are the best sandbox. Real-world variability, lighting, edge compute, and privacy aren’t just demos—they’re survivability.”
She candidly discusses why the first era of mobile AR rarely survived outside of theme parks and why the true metaverse won’t arrive through geofenced phone gimmicks, but rather from ambient cameras, context-aware AI, and wearables that deliver daily relevance.
The conversation dives into XR’s scaling riddle: most startups go too big, too soon—Illumix ran lean and learned real lessons from thousands of live deployments before expanding. Sinha’s take on platform dominance? “Whoever pairs visual context with an always-on, lightweight wearable—without being creepy—wins.” She weighs the mergers-and-acquisitions question with nuance (“you keep every door open, but we’ve built for independence and profitability”), and explains exactly why Niantic’s follow-up AR games failed to recapture Pokemon Go’s lightning-in-a-bottle.
Special thanks to our sponsor Zappar.
Subscribe for weekly insider takes from industry veterans who aren’t afraid to challenge Big Tech.
New episodes every Tuesday. Watch the full videos on YouTube.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Paul Raphaël , co-founder of Felix & Paul Studios, joins the AI XR Podcast for a candid, high-energy discussion on the state and future of immersive experiences. Broadcasting live from Las Vegas during the launch of "Interstellar Arc" at AREA15, Raphael details the three-year journey behind this ambitious location-based VR attraction—capable of hosting 170 simultaneous users in a fully interactive, physically-anchored world.
Paul explains how Felix & Paul’s background in cinematic VR, including their Emmy-winning "Space Explorers" ISS series, led organically to massive real-world installations like The Infinite and Interstellar Arc. The team’s relentless commitment to high presence, practical haptics, and social immersion has kept Felix & Paul at the top of XR content for over a decade. Raphael shares the lessons learned from surviving through hardware hype cycles, pivoting when needed, and betting big on experiential location-based entertainment. He compares the Interstellar Arc’s staged onboarding and world-building to the best of Disney Imagineering, blending nostalgia with cutting-edge tech.
The group unpacks the mixed reviews for Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset, discusses OpenAI and Microsoft’s latest browser moves, and debates the implications of California’s new chatbot disclosure law. Paul and the hosts dig deep on business realities—headset costs, throughput limitations, and why word-of-mouth and “the ultimate holodeck” matter more than the marketing hype. Raphael offers advice for young creators: stay obsessed, be nimble, and design for what’s actually possible today—not just hype for the future.
Thanks to our sponsors:
Zappar Mattercraft
Viture: Luma Series XR Glasses
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Amit Jain, CEO and founder of Luma AI, joins Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, and Rony Abovitz to unpack the future of AI-native video and the transformation of Hollywood’s creative economy. Once an Apple engineer, Jain launched Luma during the early NeRF boom and built what is now the industry’s best-performing AI video generation system—Luma Ray 3, the world’s first HDR model capable of 16-bit cinematic compositing. In this episode, Jain argues that AI video isn’t just a tool—it is quickly becoming the new substrate of the internet, a reality where professional-grade video replaces web pages as the primary interface for information, learning, and entertainment.
Before Luma, Jain led core Apple Vision teams, where he learned how AI perception systems interpret the world. That experience now powers Luma’s radical thesis: every phone user will soon generate an hour of personalized video per day, making video “the new language of the internet.”
The hosts challenge Jain on whether startups like Luma can compete with OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo, and Jain answers with confidence: “Big companies marketing harder doesn’t matter—the best models always win because creators demand control, quality, and speed.” Luma, he explains, is already embedded in four of the six major Hollywood studios and hundreds of professional production houses, providing real-time previsualization, set extension, and multi-character scene generation on consumer hardware.
Zappar's Mattercraft – AI-integrated 3D web design suite for building immersive XR content.
Viture Luma XR Glasses – 52° FOV and 152-inch virtual screen experience for gaming and streaming.
Subscribe for weekly insider perspectives from industry veterans who aren’t afraid to challenge Big Tech. New episodes every Tuesday. Watch the full videos on YouTube.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Antony “Skarred Ghost” Vitillo—legendary XR blogger, developer, and authentic voice of the immersive tech world—joins Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, and Rony Abovitz for a sharp, candid take on why spatial computing keeps breaking hearts (and bank accounts).
Vitillo, calling in from Torino (and Nutella country), takes listeners inside his evolution from reluctant Twitter handle-user to one of the industry’s essential critical thinkers. With 30,000+ social followers and nearly a decade at the helm of the Skarred Ghost blog, Tony has borne witness to every device cycle, product hype wave, and reality check XR can muster.
The hosts open with news that captures the collective whiplash of the sector: Samsung finally names its long-awaited “Moohan” headset the Galaxy XR; Apple is reportedly pivoting away from Vision Pro follow-ups in favor of pursuing AI smart glasses, chasing the hardware trend Meta has tried to lead—with several Magic Leap alumni shaping both companies’ next moves. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Sora 2 outpaces Google’s Veo 3 in text-to-video generation, and “AI feeds” continue to spark debates about separating synthetic from real in our content streams.
Vitillo unveils XR truths learned the hard way:
Zappar's Mattercraft - 3D web development with AI assistant for real-time design and debugging
Viture XR Glasses Luma Series - 52-degree field of view, 152-inch virtual screen for mobile gaming
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Paul Travers, founder and CEO of Vuzix Corporation, returns to join hosts Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, and Rony Abovitz for a masterclass in enterprise XR resilience and the long game of hardware innovation. As the architect behind the world's first consumer VR headset (the VFX1 in 1992), Travers has survived every boom and bust cycle in wearable technology for over three decades. Now publicly traded with 80,000 shareholders, Vuzix represents what Rony calls "the GameStop of XR"—a dramatically undervalued company ($200M market cap) that could become the consolidation hub for smaller XR startups while taking on tech giants with superior enterprise focus and manufacturing capabilities.
The episode opens with the hosts' unfiltered critique of Meta's recent Connect announcements, where Rony argues that despite $100+ billion invested in Reality Labs, Meta's Ray-Ban display glasses represent minimal advancement over the original Google Glass—a "disappointing" return that small startups with minimal funding are already surpassing. This sets the stage for deeper discussions about Neon, the controversial app paying users $800/month to record conversations for AI training (which Rony compares to Neal Stephenson's "gargoyles" from Snow Crash), and Meta AI's new "Vibes" feed that separates AI-generated content from real-world posts to address deepfake concerns.
Travers pulls back the curtain on three decades of XR survival:
Thank you to our sponsors, Zappar and Viture!
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Tricia Biggio, CEO of Invisible Universe, joins hosts Charlie Fink and Ted Schilowitz for an illuminating deep-dive into how AI is revolutionizing content creation for social media. A veteran television producer who transitioned from traditional media to Snap, then launched her own company, Biggio reveals how her team built the world's first AI-powered content creation platform that reduces production costs by 95% per minute. From creating viral characters like Serena Williams' daughter's doll "Qai Qai" to launching Invisible Studio—a comprehensive AI toolset now used by eighth-graders to compete with major studios—Biggio demonstrates how authentic storytelling paired with rapid iteration is reshaping entertainment. Her company's brands have achieved billions of views across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Roblox, proving that social platforms can serve as testing grounds for intellectual property development rather than just marketing channels.
Tricia emphasizes that successful AI content creation requires storytellers building tools for storytellers, not just technologists creating features. Her platform approach addresses both content creation and distribution challenges, recognizing that in a world of infinite content, strong narrative voice becomes more critical than ever. The conversation explores whether rapid AI-enabled production maintains creative integrity or if audiences actually prefer speed and authenticity over traditional craftsmanship.
Subscribe for weekly insider perspectives from industry veterans who aren't afraid to challenge Big Tech. New episodes every Tuesday. Watch the full videos on YouTube.
Thank you to our sponsors, Zappar and Viture!
Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! @TheAIXRPodcast
https://linktr.ee/thisweekinx
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Charlie is back from the Venice Film Festival Immersive, where he also judged the Reply AI Film Festival. His standout was Blur, which he shared with Ted and Rony, though the Grand Prize went to The Clouds Are 2000 Meters Up. He also praised Doug Liman’s Asteroid on Samsung’s Moohan headset and noted growing work on Apple Vision Pro.
In the news: Anthropic raised $13B at a $183B valuation, Replit secured $250M, Viture raised $100M, Mojo Vision closed $75M, and Higgsfield raised $50M. Rony highlighted Rivet’s Army award and Brainlab’s ML2 FDA clearance. Apple AirPods added live translation.
Don Carson joined to discuss Walkabout Mini Golf and the upcoming Alice in Wonderland course, set for December. Carson, a former Disney Imagineer and now senior art director at Mighty Coconut, explained how each hole is designed as a vignette to guide players through the story. Amazon is preparing new smart glasses, and TwinMind is testing lifelogging concepts.
Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!
Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @TheAIXRPodcast
https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr
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From the publisher's feed
Get the inside story on the biggest tech developments from founders, former executives, and industry veterans who built companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta Reality Labs, Apple…
Join Charlie Fink (Forbes), Ted Schilowitz, (Red Camera, Fox, Paramount Futurist) & Rony Abovitz, (founder Magic Leap).as they interview startup CEOs, ex-Google/Meta/Apple insiders, Hollywood directors, and AI researchers reshaping spatial computing.
Every week we break down the latest tech news with our signature hot takes, then dive deep with a founder or industry leader. We cover artificial intelligence breakthroughs, virtual reality hardware, augmented reality applications, synthetic media tools, and how enterprises are adopting these technologies.
We're industry insiders who have the connections to get the biggest names on the show, but we're not afraid to ask the tough questions about where big tech is heading. Our guests trust us because we've been in their shoes.
Listen now to get ahead of the next wave of computing.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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