Apple launched its brand-new Spatial Computer, Vision Pro, at the annual 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference. The device promises to “blend the real world and the virtual world" and will hit the market as early as next year.
Some were unconvinced by the device’s steep price point or its ski-goggle aesthetics, whileothers think it’s just a matter of time before Extended Reality Experiences (XR) – which encompass virtual (VR), mixed (MR) and augmented reality (AR) applications become a regular part of our everyday lives either as individuals or professionals. Remember, nobody expected to be spending $2,000 on a mobile phone 10 to 15 years ago either, but here we are.
At Amadeus, we’re passionate about the future of travel and technology and we’re constantly looking to scale innovation to unlock new opportunities to make the experience of travel better for everyone. In 2022 we increased our R&D investment by almost 30% compared to 2021, in part to explore the benefits that new technologies can bring to the travel industry and the overall traveler experience.
Amadeus has always been invested and innovative in the world of AI, so naturally one big question on our mind is how AI will fuel the growth of extended reality experiences. Here are five takeaways for us to take note:
1. Extended Realities will disrupt the way we consume digital services
The promise of Extended Reality is to deliver a totally new experience compared to traditional channels like the web or mobile: a more immersive, collaborative, interactive space for fun, novelty, and creativity.
The growth in Extended Reality and spatial computing may feel like a slow burn, but it is bound to accelerate. Apple isn’t the only big tech company investing heavily in this space. Epic Games recently released impressive new features in theirUnreal Engine game engine , and deeper integration with the Fortnite game allows content creators to better integrate their content into the Fortnite platform. Fortnite itself can be considered as a Metaverse with its own digital economy, boasting a userbase of 400 million registered users. Meanwhile, Nvidia keeps investing in highly innovative software solutions and its hardware, which platforms depend on to create and deliver immersive experiences.
Some analysts predict that by 2030 , at least25% of Internet users will spend at least one hour per day in the Metaverse, interacting with brands and businesses. Just a fewyears from now, you may find yourself planning a holiday entirely using an immersive solution: you could put on a headset to walk through a plane cabin while booking your flight, have a stroll through a hotel to select just the right room, and take a sneak peek at the view from the Eiffel Tower’s top floor. Imagine a virtual travel agency in the Metaverse, where the customer can enter and start to discuss their needs with a digital ‘travel agent avatar’. AI will ensure this avatar can have an intelligent discussion and ensure all of the traveler’s needs are met.
So even if you’re not rushing to buy a headset or a spatial computer next year, don’t write it off just yet. You may find yourself using immersive solutions sooner than you think.
2. AI will be critical to delivering exceptional, enjoyable, and safe experiences at scale
The promise of the Extended Reality experiences and immersive solutions is to deliver completely novel, exciting, and textured interactive worlds. This won’t be possible without some reliance on Non-Player Characters (NPCs, the characters in the games which are not controlled by the persons playing), or “self-service” immersive experiences with a high level of automation. NPCs and the immersive environment will largely depend on Machine Learning (ML), conversational user interfaces (like chatbots), and sophisticated sentiment analysis. And even if real people are involved, instant machine translation, advanced tech-to-speech and voice cloning solutions could help boost global adoption and allow people from different cultures and countries to interact, even if they don’t speak the same language.
In addition, if Extended Reality applications and the Metaverse grow to become as popular as modern-day social networks, ML and AI will become critical in automatically detecting inappropriate or sensitive content. Platforms will have to apply the same level of automation to suspicious or violent behavior in the Metaverse as they do in other social networks. AI (and more specifically Generative AI) will be a critical part of the fabric that sustains these worlds.
3. AI will sustain business in the Metaverse
In the future, Metaverse platforms will offer more and more the possibility to purchase virtual and real-life goods using non-fiat currencies (not backed by the government) like crypto currencies, or platform-specific currencies like V-bucks in Fortnite. The challenge is these currencies can be highly volatile, which may pose a problem for sellers trying to sustain revenues and margins, especially if users are purchasing real-life products and services like a flight. Fortunately, ML can be used for dynamic offerings, which predict trends, like the changes in conversion rates, to adapt the pricing and inventory of products distributed in the Metaverse accordingly.
AI can also be used to deliver the next generation of behavioral analytics to feed product recommendations and targeted ads. The immersive and “social-by-design” nature of the Metaverse will make personalization in the Metaverse and immersive experiences much more powerful but also more complex than what is feasible today with the Internet and Mobile apps.
4. AI will be essential in the mass creation of immersive content
One of the key challenges of Extended Reality Experiences will be to produce the relevant content at scale. For example, we already mentioned this “try before you buy” example of planning, exploring, and purchasing a trip entirely in an immersive environment.
This will require a massive volume of high-quality 3D models of aircraft, hotel rooms, and in-destination content of museums and key tourist attractions. AI will be essential to automate and speed up 3D content creation. We start to see Generative AI being used to create 3D models with complex shapes and textures based just on text prompts as simple as “create a 3D model of the Eiffel Tower”. Such 3D models could be subsequently integrated within the immersive 3D space of the Metaverse or Extended Reality solution. And that’s just the beginning: fully immersive experiences will require the creation of automated music and sound too.
Other approaches can be leveraged to achieve the content creation at scale like NERF, or Neural Radiance Fields, which is a revolutionary technology that utilizes deep learning to transform a series of 2D images into immersive, photo-realistic 3D models or enhanced visual experiences. At the end of June, a team fromMicrosoft Research created Composable Diffusion (CoDi) , an AI model that can seamlessly generate high quality content across text, images, video and audio all at once.
Fortunately, AI can also make these digital worlds more efficient: AI can be used to predict resource usage, compress 3D models, and optimize the allocation of computing resources.
5. Amadeus is closely monitoring emerging trends in technology to stay ahead of the curve
The Apple Vision Pro, defined by Apple as a “revolutionary spatial computer” is the beginning of a new era.
Our people are curious about the future, and in our position of leading in travel we’re constantly looking both within and beyond for the next groundbreaking idea. We’re always investigating and applying what we learn to scale innovation and to unlock new opportunities for the travel industry at large.
These days, our team at Amadeus is heavily invested in developing expertise in the fields of Extended Reality and generative AI. We have no doubts that Artificial Intelligence will help to make Extended Reality applications, including the Metaverse, more interoperable, scalable, secure, and more sustainable. Stay tuned as we continue to dive into this fascinating? subject over the months and years to come.
TO TOP