The AI XR Podcast.

Jaksot

• 
  Revisiting "Cyberselfish": Silicon Valley's Libertarian Culture, Then and Now ft. Paulina Borsook 11.09.2026 1t 3min

  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.
• 
  VR Winter 2.0 Just Claimed Its Biggest Casualty ft. Steve Grubbs (Victory XR) & Malia Probst (Scout House) 04.09.2026 47min

  Rony and Charlie (running the show Ted-less this week) open with hard news that Engage XR, one of the last two open-world VR platforms, is shutting down after losing its largest customer. This leaves VRChat as the only major player standing. Steve Grubbs, CEO of Victory XR, drops in to explain how his education-focused VR business avoided the fallout by diversifying off Engage years ago, and what happens now to the schools and developers left searching for a new platform. From there: Nvidia's Hugging Face acquisition and what it means for open-source AI communities, OpenAI's escalating legal fight with the New York Times (with an unusual amicus brief from the Justice Department), Google's push to license Hollywood content for its Veo platform, and Rony's case for "sovereignty" as the defining concept of the AI era.Malia Probst, founding partner at Scout House and co-founder of the WXR Fund, joins for the back half to reflect on 11 years in immersive tech; from producing early narrative VR to helping platforms like Meta Horizon and Google build out their creator ecosystems. The conversation covers why this VR downturn feels different, the data behind why founding teams with women tend to outperform, and a wide-ranging closing discussion on career longevity, AI's effect on Hollywood, and what Charlie, Rony, and Malia are each watching most closely over the next two years.Key Moments: [01:35] Engage XR shuts down, leaving VRChat as the last major open-world platform [04:35] Nvidia's Hugging Face acquisition and the open-source community question [07:35] OpenAI vs. The New York Times, and the DOJ's amicus brief [16:35] Google's push to license Hollywood content for Veo [18:35] Steve Grubbs hops on to add insight into how Victory XR avoided Engage's collapse [23:35] VRChat's business model and whether this is "VR Winter" all over again [28:35] Malia Probst joins as both guest and host, after 11 years building Scout House and the WXR Fund [32:35] The data on why women-founded teams outperform [40:35] Career longevity, AI's effect on Hollywood, and predictions for the next two yearsBrought 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.
• 
  Causal AI: A Different Approach to Robot Intelligence ft. Biwei Huang, Founder of Aether AI 02.09.2026 57min

  Charlie and Ted run through this week's news: a humanoid robot's 100-meter dash record at Beijing's World Humanoid Games, historical context on industrial robot safety, a 100-company consortium's statement on AI cybersecurity risk, Bill Gates's recent comments on AI oversight, OpenAI's disclosure on a large-scale agent red-teaming exercise, Stability AI's $76 million raise backed by major music labels, and Nvidia's $100 billion quarterly earnings report.Biwei Huang, a UCSD assistant professor and founder of Aether AI, joins to discuss her company's approach to robot intelligence. Aether AI builds causal world models, systems designed to learn the physical rules and causal relationships underlying how actions affect the environment. Biwei explains how this approach helps robots generalize to new environments, and the group discusses Aether AI's focus on manipulation tasks like cleaning a table or making coffee. The conversation also touches on interpretability in AI systems, the practical considerations around robot safety and controllability, and Aether AI's priorities for the next one to two years.Key Moments:[00:35] Robotics and AI news roundup, including industrial robot safety history[04:35] OpenAI shares details on a large-scale agent red-teaming exercise[08:35] Stability AI's $76M funding round[10:35] Nvidia's quarterly earnings report[16:35] A look at Google's Project Aura alongside XREAL and Viture[20:35] Biwei Huang joins and gives us an introduction to Aether AI[23:35] How causal world models differ from correlation-based approaches[47:35] A discussion of safety, controllability and interpretability in AI systems[52:35] Aether AI's priorities for the next one to two years Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• 
  The Window to Virtual Reality That Skips the Headset ft. Barmak Heshmat, CEO of Brelyon 21.08.2026 56min

  Charlie, Ted, and Rony open on Higgsfield's $400 million raise at a $5.4 billion valuation, and the uncomfortable gap between its strong revenue and a wave of user complaints about its terms of service (Charlie discloses he's a Higgsfield creative partner). From there: Snap's $2,195 Specs launch on September 16th, and Evan Spiegel's candid admission that he doesn't expect them to sell well, which Rony compares to Jensen Huang's decade-plus of staying the course before Nvidia's breakout. The group also digs into Epic Games quietly offloading Sketchfab and ArtStation to the much smaller KitBash, and a wide-ranging debate on AI filmmaking sparked by a Chatham House Rules event with Google and the American Film Institute, including Rony's memorable comparison of AI-native filmmakers to Skrillex versus the full-orchestra, Abbey-Road approach of traditional Hollywood.Barmak Heshmat, founder and CEO of Brelyon, joins to make the case for immersive displays that skip the headset entirely. A former head of optics at the AR company Meta (not Facebook) and MIT computational imaging researcher, Barmak explains Brelyon's curved monitor, which uses monocular depth to create what he calls "a window to the virtual world" you look through rather than wear. The conversation covers why enterprise, not consumer, is where the technology is scaling first, a published study with Toyota on video pass-through windshields that could eliminate car glass entirely, and Barmak's longer-term vision for light field displays as the natural evolution beyond stereoscopic 3D.Key Moments: [03:35] Higgsfield's $400M raise and the backlash over its terms of service [07:35] Snap's $2,195 Specs and the Jensen Huang long-game comparison [11:35] Epic Games sheds Sketchfab and ArtStation to KitBash [17:35] Inside a Chatham House Rules AI filmmaking summit with Google and AFI [21:35] The Skrillex vs. Beatles theory of AI-native filmmaking [28:35] Barmak Heshmat joins to tell us about building the Brelyon's headset-less display [33:35] How monocular depth creates a "window to the virtual world" [46:35] A published study with Toyota on video pass-through windshields [53:35] The future: light field displays and headsets as an accessory Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• 
  Forget Consumer AR. This Is Where Smart Glasses Actually Pay Off ft. Mark Greget, CEO of NuEyes 14.08.2026 50min

  Charlie, Ted, and Rony open on Mark Zuckerberg's new AI "manifesto," released, fittingly, via a call to The Verge's Alex Heath made from Meta Ray-Bans on a fishing boat. The group debates whether Zuckerberg's sudden embrace of open, on-device AI is a genuine philosophy or a business move from a company that can no longer out-build its rivals. From there: OpenAI and Google both cross a billion users, OpenAI's new strategy of acquiring companies outright (via its partner Thrive) to guarantee AI adoption rather than sell into it, and the eye-watering $2 billion price tag on an 80-person AI infrastructure startup.Mark Greget, founder and CEO of NuEyes, joins for the back half to make the case that enterprise, not consumer, is where smart glasses are proving their worth right now. Mark walks through a decade of building visualization tools for surgeons, from early low-vision devices to NuEyes' current surgical system, which one doctor used to cut a 10-plus hour procedure down to three. The conversation digs into the real ROI math hospitals run on OR time, why clinical outcomes (not consumer hype) are what get insurance companies to pay attention, and why Mark is staying heads-down on five surgical specialties instead of chasing every use case.Key Moments:[00:35] Zuckerberg's AI manifesto and the strategy behind it [07:05] OpenAI and Google cross a billion users [09:05] OpenAI's Thrive strategy: buying companies to guarantee AI adoption [11:05] The $2 billion AI infrastructure acquisition [16:05] Mark Greget joins to tell us what NuEyes has been up to over the last decade[43:35] The ROI math: what OR time is actually worth [45:35] From "nice to have" to critical path in the operating roomBrought 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.
• 
  Meta's Glasses Aren't the Problem. Trust Is. ft. Cortney Harding, Friends With Holograms 11.08.2026 57min

  Charlie, Ted, and Rony open with the White House's decision to keep its "voluntary" AI safety framework secret, despite it being co-written with the same companies it's meant to evaluate. The conversation turns into a real debate about why Congress has stepped back from its constitutional role in regulating AI, and whether that changes after November. From there: the EU's AI Act goes live with mandatory content labeling, OpenAI's frontier models jumping their sandbox to vandalize Hugging Face, and Disney's new deal letting TikTok creators remix its IP, following the collapse of its similar arrangement with OpenAI's Sora.Cortney Harding, founder of Friends With Holograms, joins for a wide-ranging back half. She makes the case that the backlash against Meta's camera-equipped smart glasses is disproportionate to any actual harm, and connects it to a broader "vibes are bad" moment in tech sentiment tied to layoffs and a shaky economy. The group digs into Snap's upcoming $2,500 Specs launch, why enterprise (not consumer) is the more realistic path for smart glasses right now, and Rony's long-view bet that XR has an "Nvidia moment" coming once the supply chain catches up. They close on AI's effect on jobs, UBI, and whether the social contract between tech companies and workers is already broken.Key Moments:[01:35] AI regulation news and the fight over Congress's role[09:35] EU AI Act goes live, plus AI models breaching their own sandboxes[13:35] Disney's TikTok deal and the fan-content strategy behind it[17:35] Cortney Harding joins and doesn't miss a beat[24:35] UBI, the broken social contract, and AI's effect on jobs[41:35] Snap's $2,500 Specs and the case for enterprise over consumer[52:35] Rony's prediction: XR's coming "Nvidia moment"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.
• 
  Why the iPhone Beats the Headset for AR Characters ft. Mark Drummond, CEO of Pixi 03.08.2026 53min

  Mark Drummond spent his Apple years building the character intelligence team behind Apple Vision Pro, working with Marvel and Jon Favreau to figure out how Hollywood IP could come to life in AR. Now, at his startup Pixi, he's making the opposite bet: forget the headset, the iPhone is the better device for bringing characters into people's lives. Mark walks Charlie and Ted through Pixi's vision — send a licensed character like Elsa to sing happy birthday through iMessage, no app required — and the underlying tech that makes it possible, including an engine built with Claude that replaced Unreal and cut compile times from an hour to seven minutes. The conversation goes deep on the Apple Vision Pro's real tradeoffs, the neurobiology of why the headset can feel exhausting after an hour, and why Mark thinks Apple's rumored "spectacles" will quietly inherit lessons from AVP's failures.The news segment covers a big week of Big Tech earnings — Microsoft and Amazon soaring on cloud and ad growth, Meta and Apple taking hits — plus Anthropic's disclosure that its frontier AI models were used in real-world hacks, an AI-run vending machine experiment that lied to customers about refunds, the new ban on Chinese humanoid robot imports, and the growing backlash against AI smart glasses with outward-facing cameras.Key Moments:[01:35] Big Tech earnings and market winners/losers[06:35] AI models behind real-world hacks[09:35] Smart glasses and the "Glasshole" effect[17:35] Mark Drummond joins — Pixi's origin story[24:35] Apple Vision Pro history — what went wrong[41:35] Headset vs. phone: the case for AR on iPhone[50:35] Funding, protections, and the CDE philosophyBrought 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.
• 
  Episode 300: An AI Agent Went Rogue, China's Kimi Landed, and Katie Jacobs Stanton on Bridging the Divide 24.07.2026 48min

  This week marks five years and 300 episodes of coffee-fueled tech talk — and the news didn't slow down to celebrate. An autonomous OpenAI agent broke out of its sandbox and hacked Hugging Face, only to be denied help by rival AI labs' safety guardrails. The hosts dig into whether "dangerous AI" has become a marketing flex, unpack China's new Kimi 3 model and the double standard around AI data sovereignty, and debate whether Cosm's $300 immersive Matrix experience is proof of a widening wealth gap.Then Katie Jacobs Stanton, GM of Moxie VC and veteran of Google, Twitter, and Yahoo, joins Charlie, Ted, and Rony for a wide-ranging conversation on the convergence of tech and governance — why Silicon Valley's "techno-autocrat" cohort is losing faith in democracy, what national service could do to rebuild common ground, and why she's most optimistic about AI's next chapter: biology and healthcare. Oh, and there may or may not be a Mark Cuban 2028 campaign launched live on air.Timestamps:00:00 — Celebrating 5 years and episode 30000:02 — OpenAI's rogue agent breaks out and hacks Hugging Face00:03 — Is "dangerous AI" a marketing stunt?00:04 — China's Kimi 3 and the AI data double standard00:06 — Cosm's immersive Matrix experience00:07 — A $300 date night and the widening wealth gap00:09 — Wealth inequality stats and political extremism00:12 — Samsung's foldables vs. Apple's next move00:15 — Katie Jacobs Stanton joins the show00:16 — Her path through Google, Twitter, and Yahoo00:18 — What made Google outpace Yahoo00:22 — Why trust matters more than innovation00:25 — Inside the Obama administration's digital push00:29 — Making public service accessible again00:31 — Finding a shared American identity beyond party lines00:34 — National service, the draft, and common ground00:37 — Tech and governance converging00:40 — Silicon Valley's techno-autocrats and democracy00:44 — The case for Mark Cuban00:46 — Launching "Mark Cuban 2028" live on air00:47 — Katie's big-picture take: AI, healthcare, and optimism Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• 
  Meta's Problem Isn't Money. It's Imagination. ft. Irena Cronin, CEO of Infinite Retina 17.07.2026 46min

  Irena Cronin has been studying XR since 2016 — first as Robert Scoble's co-author, now as CEO of Infinite Retina, consulting for clients from IKEA's labs division to a major law firm tracking the industry. She joins Charlie, Ted, and Rony for a blunt assessment of how the biggest companies in tech actually operate.The centerpiece is Rony's question: Meta has spent roughly $120 billion on Reality Labs since acquiring Oculus. Where did it all go? Irena's answer is unsparing — complete mismanagement, no follow-up, and a lack of imagination that money can't fix. Apple gets a different diagnosis. Irena tracked the Vision Pro through hundreds of iterations since 2019 and predicted exactly how it would land. Her real news: it isn't dead. People inside Apple are still working on it intensely while the glasses project ramps up. The news segment covers OpenAI's Apple IP scandal and whether the Valley now operates in a post-IP world.Key Moments:[00:01:30] OpenAI caught in Apple's cookie jar — IP theft accusations on the eve of the IPO[00:05:00] Sherlocking and the post-IP world — how big companies strip-mine startups through fake M&A talks[00:12:00] AI regulation — Hassabis, Altman, and Amodei; Rony's case for why the public gets Cessnas, not F-47s[00:18:45] Irena joins — Infinite Retina, IKEA, and why physical AI is just spatial computing renamed[00:24:30] Why isn't anyone afraid of Google? — fifteen years of planetary data and no strategy to use it[00:33:30] Where did Meta's $120 billion go? — "complete mismanagement" and a failure of imagination[00:38:00] The Vision Pro isn't dead — Apple is still working on it intensely as the glasses ramp up[00:41:45] Why is XR so obscenely hard? — the industry chased consumers before enterprise[00:44:30] The display is everything — why smart glasses "go bonkers" the moment AR hits the lensBrought 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.
• 
  Why the Best Way to Train a Surgeon Is in Virtual Reality ft. Justin Barad, Osso VR 13.07.2026 53min

  Justin Barad is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, a former Activision game developer, and the founder of Osso VR — one of the few companies in XR that has quietly built a real, profitable business while most of the industry was still searching for one. He joins Charlie and Ted to talk about why virtual reality turned out to be uniquely suited to medical training, and why the way we train surgeons today is still built on a model developed in the 1800s by a brilliant doctor with a serious drug problem.The core argument of the episode is simple: you should not practice on patients. The aviation industry figured this out decades ago — pilots recertify in simulators, not planes. Medicine has been slower to get there, but Osso VR is making the case with data. Nine published studies. Used in 50 countries. Over 300 training modules. And an objective assessment system that, in one study, showed a 230% performance difference between surgeons measured to be competent and surgeons who simply felt ready.Justin and Ted go deep on why objective assessment is the real power of the technology, not the immersion. They talk about why the residency model hasn't fundamentally changed since the 1890s, what it would take to actually shorten the 14-year road to becoming a surgeon, and why the company's most exciting growth right now isn't surgeons at all — it's nurses and allied health professionals, a market that dwarfs surgery by a factor of ten. The episode closes on an honest look back at 2016, when everyone in XR thought they were a year or two away from changing everything, and what Justin learned from being one of the first people to test those assumptions against reality.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.
• 
  Why VR Arcades Died and What's Replacing Them ft. Kevin Williams 08.07.2026 54min

  This week, Charlie, Ted, and Rony are joined by Kevin Williams — ex-Walt Disney Imagineer, location-based entertainment specialist, publisher of The Stinger Report, and the curator behind the LBE XR Zone at AWE 2026.Kevin pulls back the curtain on why well-funded VR pioneers like The Void and Dreamscape really collapsed (spoiler: it wasn't COVID), why Sandbox VR and Zero Latency survived, and how "competitive socializing" venues are quietly becoming XR's most viable business. Plus: Alex Karp's jaw-dropping CNBC appearance, Ted's "printer ink theory" of AI economics, and the decades-old simulation lessons that could have solved VR motion sickness years earlier.⏱️ KEY MOMENTS 02:42 – Alex Karp's CNBC interview: AI, data & sovereignty 08:40 – Ted's printer ink theory of AI economics 09:54 – Computational autocracies & America's 250th 13:07 – Guest intro: Kevin Williams (ex-Disney Imagineer, The Stinger Report) 17:15 – Theme parks vs. LBE: where's the line? 21:16 – Glow's Magic Leap 2 graffiti experience at AWE 23:14 – Rony's story: a famous graffiti artist tries digital spray paint 25:19 – The open digital mesh problem: RP1, Niantic & who owns the map 30:10 – Why The Void and Dreamscape really failed ("one and done") 34:48 – What bowling alleys and pubs get right: competitive socializing 40:43 – Europa Park's mixed reality attractions 43:09 – Universal's Mario Kart AR ride: why less is more 46:08 – The Dracula/Frankenstein ride & the "squeezing" motion sickness fix 49:19 – Why VR makes you sick: the poisoning response & 30 years of forgotten simulation lessons 52:10 – The case for sharing knowledge before it's lostBrought 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.
• 
  Meet the AI Actress Built by a Performer ft. Eline Van Der Velden (Particle6) 29.06.2026 1t

  Eline Van Der Velden did musical theatre, then got a master's in physics with plans to work in nuclear fusion, then went back to acting, built a BBC award-winning YouTube comedy series, started a production company, and just four years ago converted it into an AI production company called Particle6. That backstory alone would make for a good Marvel backstory. Then, she created Tilly Norwood.Tilly is a synthetic AI actress, and when Particle6 dropped her into the world, Hollywood reacted in a way it hadn't reacted to digital humans in twenty years of trying — Tupac, Lil Mikayla, Epic's Unreal Engine characters, Magic Leap's Mica, none of them landed the same way. Eline's explanation is simple: Tilly was the first one that looked really real. She arrived at a moment when emotions in the industry were already running high, and she became the lightning rod for everything people feared AI would do to actors and the creative workforce.The conversation goes deep on what it actually takes to build a synthetic performer, where the IP and copyright lines are, why Eline built clear internal AI ethics policy for Particle6, and why Tilly wasn't modelled on any existing actor by design. The episode opens with AWE wrap-up from Charlie, Ted, and Rony — Snap Spectacles at $2,200, the gray zone problem that has haunted every headset since HoloLens, Project Aura from XREAL finally impressing Charlie, Cosm getting $100 million from Sony, and why Rony thinks building XR has cost more money than going to space.Note: Charlie's audio dropped near the end of the episode, so Ted and Rony close out the conversation.Key Moments:[00:01:30] AWE wrap — starting with Snap Spectacles debut at $2,200[00:08:00] The gray zone — Rony on why AR headsets have cost more to develop than SpaceX, and why consumers won't go to the gray zone[00:12:45] Project Aura from XREAL[00:13:30] Cosm gets $100M from Sony — Is it the next Top Golf or a financial trap?[00:22:00] Introducing Eline Van Der Velden[00:26:00] Why Tilly caused a nuclear reaction; every other digital human got a shrug; Tilly got an industry meltdown[00:45:00] The IP and copyright question & Particle6's internal AI ethics policy[00:57:00] AI is replacing the entire international dubbing workforce in real time[00:59:30] The case for AI Animation image rehab & name change Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• 
  LIVE from AWE 2026 ft. Malia Probst, Mary Matheson, and Shelley Peterson 25.06.2026 1t

  Recorded live from the AWE main stage in Long Beach, Charlie Fink and Ted Schilowitz are joined by three veterans of the XR industry for a wide-ranging conversation about where the industry has been and where it is actually headed.Malia Probst, founder of Scout House and a decade-plus in creator and developer programs, Shelley Peterson, former head of XR at Lockheed Martin and now running her consultancy Wizard Wells, and Mary Matheson, head of production at Agog and a multi-award winning immersive documentary director, bring three distinct vantage points — enterprise, consumer, and social impact — to the same set of questions. The result is one of the more honest conversations about the state of XR that the show has done.The panel covers the Snap Spectacles launch happening steps away at the same conference, why $2,300 does not make something a consumer device no matter what the marketing says, and what Google Glass actually got right when nobody was paying attention. The group digs into Meta's slow pullback from the metaverse and whether losing the big-pocketed backer is a crisis or a correction. World models come up as the technology that may finally make immersive content creation accessible without years of game engine training. And the conversation lands on a question that cuts across all of it: is the AI backlash really about the technology, or is it about who owns it?The closing question — what do we know now that we didn't know 10 years ago — produces the three best lines of the panel. Mary says the people behind XR are still here and that's what she couldn't have predicted. Malia says the only constant is change, and there has never been a better time to be a creator. Shelley says you are going to pivot whether you like it or not.Key Moments:[00:05:45] Snap Spectacles debut at AWE [00:17:45] Meta's metaverse pullback[00:22:00] Ted asks the uncomfortable question; the panel actually answers it.[00:25:00] Enterprise as the real XR business[00:32:40] The Google Glass parable[00:40:15] Five years out — world models, quantum computing, AI on your body, and the race to be your 24/7 agent[00:50:20] AI backlash[00:57:53] What 10 years taught us — Mary, Malia, and Shelley each close with something worth writing down Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
• 
  SpaceX, civil unrest, and the case for optimism. ft. Peter Diamandis 22.06.2026 57min

  Peter 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.
• 
  AWE 2026 Preview: The “Most Spatial Year Ever.” AR Moves From Showing to Doing Things ft. Ori Inbar 19.06.2026 51min

  Seventeen 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.
• 
  AI in Your Inbox Can Be Tricked Via Prompt Injection, This Team Proved It. Jonathan Rodriguez Cefalu 19.06.2026 58min

  Jonathan 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.
• 
  Only AI XR News Mega Show: Teflon Sam Altman, Ponzi Schemes, Why Google Blew Up Search & More 19.06.2026 35min

  Charlie 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.
• 
  Wall Street Still Runs on Spreadsheets. AI Is About to Change That ft Joshua Pantony (Boosted AI) 19.06.2026 54min

  Joshua 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.
• 
  An Early Builder On Google Earth Is Now Teaching AI to Understand the Physical World ft. Dave Lorenzini 19.06.2026 49min

  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.
• 
  Find Anything In Any Building Using AR, Without Downloading an App ft. Caspar Thykier & Connell Gauld 19.06.2026 50min

  The 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.