Thomas van Bouwel is an indie XR game developer known for Cubism, one of the most successful puzzle games on Quest. In this episode, he shares the three-year journey of building Laser Dance, a rhythm stealth game that turns your living room into a laser-filled obstacle course using mixed reality. Thomas explains how rapidly evolving SDKs, scene meshing, and body tracking changed the game’s design mid-development, why real room geometry creates both magic and technical chaos, and how extensive playtesting across player abilities and physical spaces shaped the final product. He also discusses accessibility settings, music design, and the realities of sustaining an indie career in XR. Listeners will learn the hidden challenges of room-scale MR development, how to design for unpredictable environments, and how shifting market demographics impact creative and business decisions in today’s XR ecosystem.
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Bobak Tavangar, co-founder of Brilliant Labs, joins the show to unpack Halo, the lightweight open-source AR glasses built for AI-first computing. Unlike camera-heavy smart glasses designed for social media, Halo focuses on continuous low-power sensing, on-device AI inference, and full-day wearability—turning an AI agent into a true “second brain.” Bobak explains how Halo handles privacy by discarding raw media and storing only embeddings, why open source is critical for innovation, and how developers are already building real-world applications across healthcare, construction, manufacturing, and robotics. He breaks down the tech stack behind real-time multimodal AI, memory recall, and “vibe coding,” a natural language way to create apps without writing code. The conversation also explores pricing strategy, hardware trade-offs, business models, and where AR input and display technology must evolve next. Listeners will learn what it actually takes to build meaningful AI glasses and where the industry is heading in 2026–2027.
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH BOBAK
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Preston Platt, CTO and founder of Rock Paper Reality, joins the show to share how his team pushes the limits of XR development by blending AI workflows with rapid prototyping. With more than 16 years of experience in 3D modelling, animation, and spatial computing, Preston has built AR and MR projects for mobile, smartglasses, and headsets like the Apple Vision Pro. In this conversation, he explains how his studio embraces AI to accelerate code and asset generation, the role of generalists in creative teams, and why open XR remains critical for cross-platform development. He also reflects on the challenges of AI-driven characters, latency in NPC interactions, and the tradeoffs between artistry and automation. Listeners will gain insights into emerging workflows, platform adoption, and the future of shared immersive experiences across devices.
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Roy Rodenaheuser is a London-based Creative Technologist with over 12 years of experience at Yahoo, Unity, and Capgemini. In this episode he shares the story behind Canvastique3D, a project he launched in 2024 that blends physical creativity with real-time 3D visualization. Canvastique3D allows designers, artists, and even industries like textiles and furniture to project physical materials and artwork directly onto digital 3D models, opening new possibilities for rapid prototyping and product visualization.
We discuss how creatives across fashion, interior design, toys, and even beverage branding are experimenting with the tool, and why simplicity often wins over photorealism. Roy also explains his approach to balancing full-time work with side projects, the role of storytelling in product demos, and why sharing prototypes early is crucial. Listeners will gain insights into bridging physical and digital workflows, strategies for validation, and practical advice for creative technologists.
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Manuel, a TEDx speaker, former head of XR Design at IBM Canada and Currently Emerging tech Advocate at Unity, brings 15 years of experience across industries from aerospace to gaming and now teaches at institutions like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. In this episode, he discusses how creativity is shifting in an era where AI lowers barriers to entry, allowing more diverse voices to contribute. Manuel shares insights from his cultural preservation project Protopica, created with filmmaker Will Selviz, which uses AI, to explore Caribbean futurism and interactive storytelling. He reflects on the surprises and limitations of AI in creative workflows, the balance between specialization and generalist skills, and the importance of play and curiosity for future generations of creatives. The conversation also dives into education for AI-native children, ethical considerations around tools, and how recruiters now value storytelling and adaptability more than formal credentials.
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH MANUEL
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Philip is a VFX artist at RiseFX creating visual effects for Films and TV Shows. He is growing an incredible a youtube channel called Pixel Artistry covering the latest tools and workflows in the rapidly evolving world of 3D GenAI to share his learning with a growing community of over 8000 subscribers. His content is some of the best I have found when it comes to 3D GenAI. His videos are both clear and actionable and today I sit down with him to learn:
How he deals with the current limitations of 3D models generated by AI
What are his favourite 3DGenAI models and why
What is the next thing you should do if you are serious about 3D GenAI.
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH PHILIP
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Roberto Coviello is an engineer at Meta Reality Labs, where he builds open-source showcases and samples to help push XR development forward. He’s also known for his YouTube Channel full of in-depth XR tutorials that played a key role in his career. In this conversation we look at:
How he started his professional journey as a developer, turned content creator, and the path that led him to become a Software Engineer at Meta
We look at several SDKs provided by Meta and what he thinks is a must-have for any MR app
What are his thoughts on the role of AI for artists and developers
How he finds the right balance between employment and cultivating his dreams
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH ROBERTO
💼 Linkedin
🔗 YouTube
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Sam Cole is the CEO and a co-founder of FitXR. He is a firm believer in the benefits of regular exercise for physical and mental health, and since the conception of VR, he turned his vision of delivering immersive fitness into a reality for hundreds of thousands of people who have rediscovered that movement can be fun thanks to FitXR. In this conversation
We take a deep dive into FitXR and learn how the team keeps innovating
He shares the lessons he learned as a founder when rapidly growing and then downsizing
His down-to-earth impressions on AI
How he sees fitness evolving on smart glasses and some of the associated risks
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH SAM
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Mo dedicated over 18 years to designing solutions that empower people and make a meaningful impact. This includes more than 8 years in immersive XR, spatial computing, and AI-powered products, leading in-house and remote teams across pioneering startups like ShapesXR, Gravity Sketch and FitXR, forward-thinking agencies and more recently as Senior product designer at Meta.
We tap into his experience when hiring designers
His take on the role of designers within bigger and smaller organisations
What was his experience when working in startups, being a freelancer and also what he loves about working in corporates
The role of designers when designing FOR AI products
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH MO
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Don Carson started as an illustrator, but soon his work expanded beyond the sketchbook to focus on the design of physical and virtual spaces. He worked as a Senior Show Designer, as an Imagineer, he designed entire lands for the Disney Parks and he is now Sr. Art Director at Mighty Coconut, the team behind Walkabout Minigolf, one of the most popular and loved apps on the Meta Quest. In this conversation we look at:
How the team has embraced the low-poly graphics to create worlds people love
Some of the major challenges when it comes to building worlds and telling stories
His secret for engaging and keeping players hooked
Don offers me a guided tour of Raptor's Cliff to experience firsthand some of the storytelling techniques that make Walkabout’s worlds so popular and of course, I get the chance to showcase my terrible golfing skills
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH DON
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Dmytro Kornilov is an innovation marketing futurist with 15+ years of experience in the industry. He is the founder of FFFACE.ME an award-winning innovation company, and LOOOK.AI an AR and AI Mirrors company. With practical experience in AR, MR, Digital Beauty and Fashion, AI and Phygital, Dmytro has led omnichannel innovation projects for global brands like Prada, Inditex, PUIG, Ralph Lauren, D&G, Valentino, Burberry, L'Oréal, Mugler, Meta, and many more
Nathan C Bowser (they/them): is a product strategist and founder of Awesome Future, an innovation studio that helps global technology brands break through go-to market barriers and grow great ideas faster. Nathan has spent the last decade demystifying cutting edge tech for the endterprise as a podcaster, product leader, technology writer, and speaker who has been teaching and using AR and VR in marketing since 2015.
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH OUR GUESTS
💼 Linkedin:
Nathan
Dmytro
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Lennard Wolff, holds a Master in Cinematography and he is an expert in volumetric capture technology. He is Former Senior Technical Director at Synthesia and now the CEO of AdventuryXR a London based a startup revolutionising corporate learning through photorealistic immersive experiences.
Georgii Vysotskii the co-founder and CEO of Gracia.ai a deep tech company specializing in the visualization and distribution of Gaussian splatting even in VR.
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH OUR GUESTS
💼 Linkedin:
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Andrew Seleznov. Head of AR Production at Arcadia. Snap's internal creative studio for branded experiences working with the Biggest brands in the world and reshaping the way user interact and angage digitally and with the world around them.
Some of the capabilities of Lens Studio you might not know about
We look at 2 of their biggest collaboration with Nike and NYX and break down the types of brands working with Arcadia and the secret to a successful collaboration
Dive into his experience working on Spectacles
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH ANDREW
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Kent Keirsey is the founder and CEO of Invoke. He has been in the tech industry for over 14 years, serving as a product and business leader in startups across B2B, B2C, and Enterprise SaaS. In 2022, he was an early contributor to Invoke's generative AI tools in open-source, building solutions for professional creatives. Recognising the need for these tools to serve teams, he founded Invoke in 2023 to provide image-generation software for established creative teams and enterprises. During this conversation, we will look at:
The Pros and cons of consumer-grade GenAI tools
What it takes to create a tool made for professional teams to solve specific creative challenges
The opportunities unlocked by a higher degree of control and customisation of creative workflows
We dive into some of the key issues faced by GenAI tools used for professional workflows, like the datasets used for the training and who owns the final product
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH OUR KENT
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Knut Nesheim has a background in large-scale machine learning systems and big data. He leads the engineering teams building Teleport, the Gaussian splatting tool created by Varjo, the Finnish hardware company renowned for the top-tier MR headset used by the most demanding businesses and enterprises worldwide. In this conversation we take a deep dive at the intersection of Gaussian splatting and VR.
We look at the very technological foundation of Teleport
Unique features it offers to users
The obvious consequences of their unrelenting pursuit of photorealism… with 2 caveats
How this all fit within the bigger vision of serving top-tier enterprises worldwide
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH KNUT
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Andranik Aslanyan is Head of Growth for VIVERSE at HTC, where he leads business strategies across marketing social media and product development to grow and scale this world-building platform built on the web for the web. In this conversation, we look at:
A unique feature offered to world builders to help them overcome the limitations of the web
How can creators monetise their work on Viverse
How Viverse has implemented Gaussian Splatting
A precious advice he gives to world builders
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
***
CONNECT WITH ANDRANIK
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Matt Hoerl is a designer building things that feel inevitable once they exist. He founded Beautiful Things in 2024, a studio crafting AI native spatial experiences for the Apple Vision Pro. His visionOS apps have been globally featured by Apple Editors and selected as “Best in Education” and “Best in Design.” In this conversation we look at:
His impressions about WWDC and what it unlocks for developers and users
We went to the moon to experience Beautiful things
Several ways in which the team has implemented AI in their apps
The second biggest wish Matt wants from Apple
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
OUR SPONSOR
Visit Meshy.ai and use the code "XRAI20" to get 20% discount on your subscription
***
CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Yuqian Sun is a Chinese AI narrative researcher based in London and currently a doctoral student at the Royal College of Art.
Leveraging her expertise in interactive media, she creates narrative experiences that feel alive and extend beyond video games and into our daily lives through conversational AI agents. She explores this topic through chatbots, games and interactive installations, which expand the boundary of fiction through human or non-human language interactions.
In this conversation, we look at:
The driving principles she follows when building believable AI Agents
Language and cultural barriers in the context of AI and Humans
Her strong stance on AI-generated content
A precious advice she gives to all creators out there who simply “hate AI”
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
OUR SPONSOR
Visit Meshy.ai and use the code "XRAI20" to get 20% discount on your subscription
***
CONNECT WITH YUQIAN
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Christoph is an XR veteran, he worked as an XR developer at Axel Springer, and is now one of the minds behind Laser Limbo, a successful mixed reality game on Quest that turned into a full AR arcade in Berlin. Over the past years he has worked on several projects and full games that merge physical and digital and push the boundaries of what the current generation of headsets is capable of.His recent research has been focused on the camera API leading to some of the craziest AND most polished prototypes I have seen, giving us a glimpse of the future of human computer interaction. Today we will dive into the Camera API and understand:- What is currently the biggest limitation- What are some creative uses you might not have thought about- How he implemented ball tracking in the working prototype, I personally tested- An important question you should ask yourself before even starting
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
OUR SPONSOR
Visit Meshy.ai and use the code "XRAI20" to get 20% discount on your subscription
***
CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast
Naureen Mahmood is the CEO & co-founder of Meshcapade, an award-winning tech startup based in the heart Europe’s largest AI ecosystem, Cyber Valley.
At Meshcapade she is applying her work on human understanding for training AI avatars to see, understand and interact just like humans. This goes way beyond animating game characters. Meshcapade is developing the world's first and only 3D human behavior engine to power human-like interactions and behaviors for AI characters, virtual beings and humanoid robots.
We look at the very research foundation built by Meshcapade
The SMPL model, that is now the de facto standard for computer vision
How Meshcapade fits within the workflows of animators
The broad range of use cases that go beyond gaming
And all this effort is the foundation for how we will be able to interact with avatars, characters or virtual agents
Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter 👉 https://xraispotlight.substack.com/
OUR SPONSOR
Visit Meshy.ai and use the code "XRAI20" to get 20% discount on your subscription
***
CONNECT WITH NAUREEN
💼 Linkedin
🔗 Website
***
CONNECT WITH ME
🐤X (Twitter)
💼 Linkedin
🔗Link-in Bio
***
PAST EPISODES
🎙️ Show Website
🟢 YouTube
🍎Apple Podcast