XR Today spoke with Amy Peck, Chief Executive Officer of EndeavorXR about the top tech trends in 2023 on the sidelines of her keynote speech at the Immerse Global Summit (IGS) 2022 in Miami.
EndeavorXR, a strategy and consultancy firm for virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR), solutions and symbiotic technologies is part of EndeavorXR. Peck also serves as the Board Chair for Prospera Women, and hosts Future Construct.
Keynote 2023 Tech Trends
Amy shared some of the top takeaways she learned from her keynote speech. Many of these explained the difference between enterprise-facing and metaverse creation.
She said that Web3 and Metaverse were becoming too common terms. Many companies aimed to determine their future products and services, outline benchmarks, and apply their strategies to the “real-world limitations of [Web3] technology.”
Peck stated that companies need to have a longer than 20-year view of their strategies, which should also include ESG goals.
She explained further:
“A lot of companies have very lofty goals for 2030, and they won’t reach them without these technologies. They offer not only the opportunity for critical monitoring with digital twins and artificial intelligence (AI)-backed, also closed-loop optimisation strategies, but can also simulate outcomes so that you can improve processes today and meet those goals in the future, which is the near future”
IGS 2022 Miami Takeaways
Peck shared the top takeaway of the event by stating that many speakers covered similar topics like digital twin optimization strategies and return on investment (ROI).
ROI strategies targeted “futuristic innovation,” allowing enterprises to explore “the best results” as it was crucial to receiving further investments.
Companies also needed to push innovation strategies and build “an innovation pipeline that is cross-functional” not limited to innovation hubs and research and development (R&D) teams.
Tech Trends in 2023
Speaking on the emerging trends for 2023, Peck explained that sectors in social media, fashion, entertainment, and games would intersect with a “multimedia approach” to engage consumers.
As emerging trends, digital twin technologies were being promoted by major tech firms like Unity Technologies, NVIDIA and Unity Technologies. She said that enterprises were likely to adopt digital asset management strategies such as 3D twins and 3D assets.
Continue, she said.
“I think what we’ll see in 2023 is a lot more companies plugging in, probably at the 3D asset phase, especially for companies that already have 3D pipelines, like consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies or retail and design. The companies might also use digital twins for their offices, manufacturing lines, or retail spaces. I think mobile augmented reality (AR) will also get exponentially better.”
Smiling, she added, “and I really hope that, in 2023, we don’t hear the word phygital anymore”
EndeavorXR updates
Amy Peck, Chief Executive Officer of EndeavorXR
Peck then moved on to updates with EndeavorXR, explaining that EndeavorXR had always worked with larger original equipment manufactures (OEMs), such as HTC, Magic Leap and Meta Platforms.
Doing so She allowed her clients to “keep a pulse on the hardware [side],” but her firm also explored front-end strategies to assess current company progress, Their existing tech capabilitiesFuture products and services.
She recommended companies Even if there is only one Technology Director, work towards developing internal capabilities. This will allow you to manage external relationships and ensure future systems are compatible with existing systems.
Current and Future Challenges
Speaking on the “hype cycle” of the XR industry, she explained that post-COVID, many companies were “still reeling.” After restrictions eased, people could travel, see each other, and have meaningful conversations again about the industry’s future.
She added that many companies in the tech industry had just begun to ‘scratch the surface’ of collaborating in virtual environments. She said that immersive platforms were improving despite limitations in the current hardware.
Platforms such as Spatial allowed people to collaborate via the internet, mobile devices, headsets, and others, providing a “persistent environment.”
She said: “That’s really a big deal. I would have liked to see more of that and less of the hype cycle, where everything is called the Metaverse or Web3 while conflating the two terms.”
Peck also cited events “detrimental to the industry” such as fraud, rug pulls, the failure of FTX and other cryptocurrencies and exchanges, as well as “false scarcity with non-fungible tokens (NFTs)” and the crypto market collapse.
Continued, she criticised certain trends in the industry, writing,
“It doesn’t help the industry because again, I think [people] have lumped everything into the umbrella term of ‘Metaverse’. We as an industry haven’t done a good job of educating the general public on what the Metaverse, Web3, VR, AR, the blockchain, AI, and other underlying technologies mean at a very high, decoder-ring level that is accessible to everyone. I don’t think we did a good job in 2022 – I hope we do a better job in 2023”
Concluding, she said it was important for the industry to follow industry experts who are “really deep in the space” rather than just technology influencers.
She concluded: “Whether you’re a company or just an individual interested in the technology, find as many case studies and subject matter experts (SMEs) as possible to help you build a well-rounded understanding of technology.”