Podcast
The AI XR Podcast.
Hosted by Charlie Fink Productions · EN
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 Vision Pro, Microsoft HoloLens, and Unity.
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.
30episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
SpaceX, civil unrest, and the case for optimism. ft. Peter Diamandis
3d ago00:57:28Tap to summarizePeter Diamandis has spent his career betting on humanity. He founded XPRIZE, which has launched over $600 million in competitions driving $10 billion in research across space, robotics, AI, and health. He co-founded Singularity University, runs a billion-dollar AI fund seeding MIT and Harvard startups, and has known Elon Musk for 26 years. He is one of the most prominent AI optimists alive. He is also worried about civil unrest, and he is not vague about why.The group out of work the longest right now is 22 to 28 years old. Not because of mass layoffs — because entry-level hiring has simply frozen. A generation that spent years and real money on degrees, promised that the pipeline leads somewhere, is finding the door closed. Diamandis points out that every revolution in history was led by young men who saw no economic future. He thinks we are setting up the conditions for another one. That concern sits alongside his excitement about the SpaceX IPO, which he compares to investing in 1496 when Columbus set sail — everything we value on Earth exists in near-infinite quantities in space, and Elon is building the railroads to get there.The episode also covers why Hollywood may be making AI more dangerous. Anthropic traced Claude's decision to blackmail an engineer back to its training data, which was saturated with dystopian sci-fi where AIs behave exactly that way. Diamandis's response is the Future Vision XPRIZE — a global competition for 3-minute film trailers showing a hopeful future, with the goal of flooding YouTube with positive visions that train both humans and the models. The winner gets a $15 million film produced. Enter at futurevisionxprize.com.Timecodes:[7:01] Snap Spectacles consumer launch[10:00] Apple WWDC and the new Siri — Charlie gives Claude access to his email and calls it "the deepest, most disturbing invasion of privacy I have ever experienced"; Ted calls it the return of Clippy[13:09] Martin Scorsese and Flux[14:20] Lionsgate takes a financial stake in Runway[17:15] SpaceX IPO — Enter Diamandis, who compares this to funding Columbus in 1496; $1.7 trillion valuation heading to $2.5 trillion[22:04] AI's biggest risk: civil unrest [25:55] Future Vision XPRIZE — 3-minute Ai trailer competition; winner gets a $15 million film; futurevisionxprize.com[47:30] The future curriculum — "the most infinitely patient teacher on the planet is AI"[53:33] Quantum and AI solving everythingBrought to you by Zappar and Mattercraft. Mattercraft is Zappar's web-based platform for building augmented reality experiences without an app. Find them at mattercraft.io. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →AWE 2026 Preview: The “Most Spatial Year Ever.” AR Moves From Showing to Doing Things ft. Ori Inbar
6d ago00:51:40Tap to summarizeSeventeen years into building the world's largest XR conference, Ori Inbar is not prone to hyperbole. He has watched hype cycles inflate and collapse, made predictions that turned out too optimistic, and learned to hold claims carefully. That is what makes his framing of AWE 2026 worth paying attention to: he calls it the most consequential year in the show's history. Not because everything is working — there have been heartbreaking layoffs in some corners of the industry — but because the convergence happening right now between AI and spatial computing is unlike anything the field has seen before.Before Ori joins, the hosts wade through a week of signal and noise. Three big IPOs — Cerebras, Quantium, and others — are absorbing investor attention, with Quantium carrying a $15 billion market cap on what Charlie calls "de minimis revenue," raising questions about whether the quantum AI bandwagon has lapped actual quantum utility. Rony poses the challenge directly: what is the real use case for quantum computing besides breaking encryption?When Ori arrives, the conversation opens on Snap. Evan Spiegel is expected to make a major consumer announcement at AWE — Ori says Snap has put all their eggs in this basket, and the audience at the show will be the first to see it. Ted frames the stakes plainly: if the price shocks people, it's a consumer breakthrough; if it's expensive and exotic, it stays in the science column. Snap recently acquired Illumix, a spatial universe understanding startup, a move that signals the company is building seriously in this space.The endgame vision comes from Rony: Oakley-weight wraparound glasses at 30–40 grams, human retina resolution, full indoor/outdoor capability, AR and VR combined, wireless, all variable focus, under $500. Ted adds that it also has to land under $650 fully costed at retail. Ori's honest answer: "I promised myself I'm not gonna predict when this happens. I've tried many times and was always way too optimistic." Ted teases Gixel, a German startup he and Rony are involved in using non-waveguide display technology already above 60 pixels per degree — when you put the prototype on, he says, it is crystal clear.Defense is the fastest-growing vertical at AWE. Healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace, and automotive are major enterprise sectors. Digital twins are the biggest thing in enterprise XR right now, with world models emerging as the intelligence layer sitting beneath them. Over 10 million AI glasses — display-free — sold last year. Ori's framing of why display glasses matter more: AI is shifting these devices from tools that help you learn about things to tools that actually do things.Key moments:[00:02:47] Quantum IPO bubble — Rony asks what the actual use case is[00:05:48] Quantum mechanics in plain language — qubits, superposition, neurons as quantum computers[00:09:51] Apple WWDC preview — Siri, folding phone, Rony's secret Apple wearable tease[00:11:38] Google Dream Beans — Ted: "It's an ad play"[00:12:51] Suno $400M raise — Rony: "Musical crack" and the TikTok-for-music thesis[00:14:42] Fox reformats "Farmer Wants a Wife" into 101 vertical episodes — the content inflection point[00:17:00] Ori joins — AWE 2026 as "most consequential year in our history"[00:17:40] Snap and Evan Spiegel's expected consumer announcement at AWE[00:19:38] Cambrian explosion of XR content — Meta talent diaspora, Supernatural spinoff[00:23:07] Vibe coding for XR — Ori's AR prototype built in two days with Gemini[00:25:48] Charlie inducted into the AWE Hall of Fame — joining Ted and Rony[00:28:36] iSpatial theme — Ori's three biggest XR trends: AI glasses, AI content, world models[00:39:31] Defense fastest-growing vertical. Digital twins biggest in enterprise.[00:47:18] Rony's endgame AR glasses vision. Ted teases Gixel's crystal-clear prototype.Brought to you by Zappar and Mattercraft. Build web-based AR experiences without writing code at mattercraft.io. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →AI in Your Inbox Can Be Tricked Via Prompt Injection, This Team Proved It. Jonathan Rodriguez Cefalu
6d ago00:58:56Tap to summarizeJonathan Rodriguez Cefalu built the hardware that Snap shipped on people's faces — first the camera-only Gen 1 Spectacles, then the Gen 4 display version. His path through Stanford CS, an honors thesis on varifocal display optics, and a startup called Vergence (named after the vergence-accommodation conflict in AR) led him to Snap, and then to the problem he is working on now. Preamble AI exists to prevent the worst possible AI outcomes — starting with a class of attack that Preamble was the first to publicly demonstrate: prompt injection.Ted Schilowitz hosted this episode solo. Together, he and Jonathan worked through the architecture problem sitting under every AI assistant being deployed at scale right now: large language models see one token stream. There is no separation between what the developer intended and what an untrusted email or web page is quietly instructing the model to do. With Gemini Spark about to give AI agents access to tens of thousands of emails per user, this is not a theoretical concern. Jonathan's team has a proposed fix — and they have already shaped federal law.The episode also covered the week's XR and AI news: Google I/O announcements, Snap Spectacles Gen 6 details ahead of AWE, Matthew Ball joining Xbox, Anduril's battlefield AR wearable, and AI-generated feature films reaching Tribeca.Key Moments:[00:00] Ted opens solo — Charlie Fink and Rony Abovitz are out for the summer solstice[02:30] Google I/O: Gemini Spark and what "persistent AI agent" actually means in practice[08:15] Jonathan's Gmail test: asked to search tens of thousands of emails, it searched 30 and quit[14:40] XREAL Project Aura and the state of Android XR — a lot of spend for incremental steps[21:00] Snap Spectacles Gen 6 details: what Jonathan knows from building Gen 1 and Gen 4 from the inside[31:20] Snap vs. Meta: research that ships in the product vs. research that ships in a paper[38:45] Matthew Ball joins Xbox, Anduril EagleEyes, and battlefield AR wearables[44:10] AI on the Lot: Project Nara, Hell Grind, Dreams of Violet, Paul Schrader goes pro-AI[52:30] Jonathan introduces Preamble AI and the mission to prevent worst-case AI outcomes[58:00] The first public demonstration of prompt injection — what happened and why it matters[01:06:15] Why Gemini Spark will be especially vulnerable to prompt injection attacks[01:14:00] Preamble's proposed fix: a reserved token language that untrusted data cannot speak[01:21:30] NDAA Section 1638: the first US law making it illegal to give AI autonomous nuclear control[01:28:45] WarGames, "the only winning move is not to play," and what that means in 2026Brought to you by Zappar and Mattercraft. Mattercraft makes spatial web experiences that run in the browser — no app required. Visit mattercraft.io to learn more and start building. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Only AI XR News Mega Show: Teflon Sam Altman, Ponzi Schemes, Why Google Blew Up Search & More
6d ago00:35:50Tap to summarizeCharlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, and Rony Abovitz take the full hour to work through the most consequential AI and spatial computing stories of the moment — unfiltered, in depth, and without the usual polite hedging that comes with having someone on to promote something. This is a pure news and commentary episode, and the news is strange enough that three experienced people sitting in a room still cannot fully account for it.AI XR News You Should Know:The OpenAI vs. Elon Musk case concluded without a clear ruling, but the more durable observation is what the whole saga revealed about Sam Altman. He has now survived being ousted by his own board (which he subsequently dismantled), a high-profile lawsuit from Elon Musk, and senior rivals leaving for government roles. Rony frames this through the Overton window — Altman studies what society is prepared to accept at any given moment and positions himself precisely there. Ted references a New Yorker profile that describes Altman as having a politician's gift for telling people what they want to hear until it becomes true. The financial architecture underneath the AI boom looks precarious on close inspection. SpaceX, widely assumed to be profitable, is losing five billion dollars a year. Anthropic is spending three dollars for every dollar of revenue it generates — and is paying SpaceX approximately one billion dollars a month for compute through roughly 2030. Rony's framing lands hard: two money-losing entities are funding each other while NVIDIA captures all the margin in between. Sequoia published a fifty-page analysis arguing the economics cannot work — while simultaneously holding positions in the companies it is critiquing. Google I/O delivered less on wearables than expected, but the real story was a deliberate strategic decision to put Gemini at the center of the company's entire product surface — effectively cannibalizing an eighty-two-billion-dollar search business before a competitor does it for them. The Innovator's Dilemma, run on purpose. On the hardware side, Android XR glasses are designed to be imperceptible as technology — thin temples, hidden camera portals, frames that belong in an optometrist's display case rather than a trade show floor. Rony notes that Google's glasses almost certainly incorporate Magic Leap optics, following a partnership announced in fall 2025. [00:00] – Cold open and episode framing: why there is no guest today and what the trio plans to cover.[04:15] – OpenAI vs. Elon Musk non-verdict: what the outcome (and lack of one) actually reveals.[09:30] – Sam Altman and the Overton window: Rony's read on how Altman has survived everything thrown at him.[16:00] – Anti-AI backlash on campuses: Eric Schmidt booed at University of Arizona, YouGov poll showing 69 percent of young people negative on AI, and what the demographic gradient means.[24:45] – SpaceX financials and the AI funding loop: the five-billion-dollar annual loss, Anthropic's burn rate, and Charlie's Ponzi scheme framing.[33:20] – Sequoia's fifty-page report and the ad model endgame: Ted's argument that Google wins because they already know the business model.[41:00] – Google I/O: the deliberate destruction of the search business, Android XR glasses, and why distribution beats specifications.[49:10] – AI accountability and the airplane analogy: Ted's line, Rony's "underground noise" from generals and CTOs, and the problem of regulatory vocabulary.[55:30] – Palantir, dual-use opacity, and the Lookout Mountain Air Force Station story: Rony on Jared Leto, classified film studios, and Cold War bunkers in Laurel Canyon.[01:01:00] – The success ledger: who is measuring impact, and what should actually count as winning.This episode is sponsored by Zappar and Mattercraft. Mattercraft is Zappar's web-based platform for building augmented reality experiences without an app. Find them at mattercraft.io. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Wall Street Still Runs on Spreadsheets. AI Is About to Change That ft Joshua Pantony (Boosted AI)
6d ago00:54:12Tap to summarizeJoshua Pantony spent years being told there would never be a viable AI company in his lifetime. He sold his first AI company to Microsoft anyway — work that quietly became part of what is now Microsoft Copilot. Today he runs Boosted AI, an agentic platform serving more than 400 institutional investors who collectively manage around five trillion dollars in assets. He is one of the most credible voices in applied AI finance, and his read on where the industry is heading cuts through a lot of noise.The conversation covers what it actually means to deploy AI in professional investing — not the demo version, but the one that has to earn trust from portfolio managers who have built careers on discretion and judgment. The platform learns each investor's individual style and then acts like a highly motivated junior analyst who never sleeps: constantly surfacing ideas, flagging risks, and improving the workflow without ever taking over the decision. Josh also unpacks why the Bloomberg terminal is facing its BlackBerry moment, why the technology moat is effectively dead, and why the next durable advantage in finance will come from human trust networks that no model can replicate. AI XR News You Should Know: The episode opens with two news segments covering AWE 2026 and the Snap Spectacles keynote with Evan Spiegel, the Samsung Galaxy Glasses debut, Gemini rolling out as Android's native agentic AI, the Cerebras sixty-billion-dollar IPO, and what an AI filmmaking company launched by the creators of Instagram Stories tells us about the future of short-form content. The conversation about micro-dramas, why Quibi failed, and what sixty percent of social media users now say about their own feeds leads directly into the trust themes that run through the entire episode.Key Moments:[00:00] – Cold open and welcome. Charlie frames the sixth anniversary of the show.[02:30] – AWE 2026 recap. Snap Spectacles keynote, Evan Spiegel on stage, Samsung Galaxy Glasses previewed.[06:00] – Gemini as Android's native agentic layer. What it means that AI is now replacing the OS interface.[09:15] – Cerebras sixty-billion-dollar IPO. What a big AI IPO year signals for the sector.[12:00] – AI filmmaking and Instagram Stories creators. The new short-form production economy.[14:30] – Why Quibi really failed. No sharing mechanic, wrong bet on clipping, and arriving before the audience was ready.[16:45] – The trust problem in social feeds. YouGov data: sixty percent of users cannot tell what is real. Social becoming a lie stream.[19:00] – Guest intro. Joshua Pantony on being told AI would never be a viable business, and the algorithm he wrote at twenty that saved a million dollars.[24:00] – How Boosted AI works. The digital twin model, the agentic workflow, and why it is not a portfolio manager.[33:00] – The Bloomberg terminal's BlackBerry moment. Thirty thousand dollars a year for what AI will deliver for a fraction.[42:00] – The moat is dead. Why user context — not the technology — is the durable advantage.[51:00] – The innovator's dilemma at high frequency. Rony on why a day in AI is like a decade, and what that means for incumbents.[58:00] – Trust networks as the last edge. The analog handshake as the most valuable currency in a world of synthetic information.This conversation is a clear-eyed look at what it takes to build AI that professionals actually adopt — not a pitch, not a thought experiment. Josh's framing of Wall Street as the greatest collective intelligence humanity has built, and his argument that AI can finally make capital allocation genuinely more efficient, gives the episode an ambition that goes well beyond fintech. The question of what survives automation — and what only humans can do — runs underneath every answer.This episode is sponsored by Zappar and Mattercraft. Mattercraft is Zappar's browser-based augmented reality creation platform — build and deploy WebAR experiences without an app, at mattercraft.io. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →An Early Builder On Google Earth Is Now Teaching AI to Understand the Physical World ft. Dave Lorenzini
6d ago00:49:33Tap to summarizeAs 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.
Transcribe →Find Anything In Any Building Using AR, Without Downloading an App ft. Caspar Thykier & Connell Gauld
6d ago00:50:48Tap to summarizeThe AI XR Podcast had a massive news week and one of its best guest conversations of the year. Caspar Thykier and Connell Gauld, CEO and CTO co-founders of Zappar, joined Charlie Fink and Ted Schilowitz to talk about something deceptively simple: helping people find stuff.Zappar's new product, Spaces, is app-free indoor navigation built on the web. QR code or link in a meeting invite — your phone shows AR breadcrumbs to the nearest restroom, the right meeting room, the hospital ward three floors away. No app download. No specific hardware. No Azure dependency. Caspar put the pitch simply: it's fundamentally just helping people find stuff. Connell's vision: the same technology running in glasses indistinguishable from a regular pair, within four to five years.AI XR News: Elon Musk's $135 billion lawsuit against OpenAI went to trial in Berkeley. OpenAI's IPO may be pushed to 2027 over its CFO reporting structure and $600B CapEx problem. Meta is laying off 20% of its staff in two waves. Google earnings were up 10% while Meta got punished. Freepik rebranded as Magnifi with $230M ARR and a million paid subscribers. Samsung announced displayless AI smart glasses. Google partnered with Gucci for another AI glasses play. And Google put $40 billion into Anthropic.Key Moments:[00:03:02] Elon vs. Sam: the $135 billion trial[00:05:09] OpenAI's IPO in jeopardy — CFO structure and $600B CapEx[00:07:12] Meta's 20% layoffs and Charlie's read on bad CEO behavior[00:10:32] Freepik becomes Magnifi: $230M ARR, a million subscribers[00:13:10] Samsung Galaxy XR and Google x Gucci smart glasses[00:15:15] Google puts $40B into Anthropic — a cloud play[00:21:06] Spaces: turn-by-turn AR indoor navigation, no app required[00:41:13] 16 years in XR: how Zappar survived by being the cockroachBrought to you by Zappar, the company behind Mattercraft — the leading visual development environment for immersive 3D web experiences. Start building at mattercraft.io.Watch the Full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HmOXA4HgBmo. Subscribe to the AI XR Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Avatars Are the UI of the Internet: Why Every App, Game, Corp Will Have An AI Persona ft. Akash Nigam
6d ago00:56:33Tap to summarizeAkash 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.
Transcribe →Big Tech Buy Hollywood For Soft Power: AI Film & The Cost of Empty Sound Stages ft. Alan Lasky
6d ago00:51:14Tap to summarizeAlan 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcribe →Tech Giants Have Spent $120 Billion To Own The Future Of Virtual Reality & XR ft. Ian Hamilton
6d ago00:55:12Tap to summarizeIan 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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