Building Awareness For Spatial Solutions
Building the Enterprise business at Niantic puts us in pioneering and sometimes visionary company as many businesses and entire industries try to plan and prepare for a much more immersive future. Thanks to ever accelerating advancements in spatial computing and XR technologies, the questions about who is using spatial software and solutions and what problems are they trying to solve are getting a lot more interesting answers.
VR/AR Association Hits the Road
With 50 chapters across the US and around the world, the VR/AR Association (VRARA) already features many champions of spatial services, products, and breakthroughs. Niantic’s Hugh Hayden took over as President of the SF Chapter late last year, and the initial meeting for 2025 in Berkeley at HTC was the kickoff for a national roadshow series for XR in the Public Sector. For those in the industry it’s no surprise that defense use cases, especially immersive training scenarios, put that industry at the forefront of XR experimentation, but discussions about the opportunities to have spatial solutions address seemingly infinite enterprise and public sector use cases made for a lively multi-hour event.
“Think Big. Start Small. Scale Fast”
HTC’s office is a great location to host a day of interactive sessions including multiple hands-on demos, presentations and panel discussions. John Cunningham, President of Virtualware, and COO of the VRARA, made a compelling case for Enterprise XR in part by highlighting a use case by GE Vernova. For the last two years they’ve been using a VR training room to greatly expand the way they do annual site inspections of power facilities. These are highly technical functions that need to comply with detailed regulations so rather than relying on a highly limited number of employees trained to do the work, GE and the energy company running its power equipment have been able to improve the efficiency and quality of the process.
John noted that enterprise deployments need to address a number of considerations from security to buy in, and pointed out that for most enterprise buyers, the language around spatial computing and XR still very much varies among companies. Shared language and understanding of business value impact is a huge key to unlock for more companies to adopt technology that can literally change the way a company does business.
Call 911
Why do we still use words to describe an emergency when we all carry these (smartphones), was the question retired firefighter Kirk McKinzie asked, and he presented the stark challenge. His data shows there are 700,000 calls to 911 in the US every day, and ~7,000 people perish each day in the US. That number includes first responders who often don’t know the physical layout of the space they are entering, which has often been described to them by a frantic 911 caller, whose information has been described to an emergency dispatcher, who has described the information to the first responders. As many people as there are in that chain there are likely to be that same number of smartphones available to greatly improve the ability of first responders to provide the assistance that someone desperately needs.
Kirk’s company, McKinzie Smart Technologies, works with firefighters to improve the tools they have to greatly improve the safety conditions of the very dangerous jobs they do. What he describes broadly as “360/3D/SMART cyber-physical systems for saving lives,” includes the use of immersive technologies to greatly improve firefighting specifically, but that has benefits for anyone in an emergency. He notes that the majority of firefighters still rely on chest-worn radios that haven’t been updated in decades and they have little to no access to imaging, drone or biometric technology. This is an area of public sector enterprise work that is in need of more contemporary solutions, a great fit for a variety of spatial solutions.
XR & AI in Public Safety Panel: What is the US Government Looking For?
The agenda closed with a panel discussion moderated by Trista Pierce (Business Development for Niantic Spatial Platform), featuring Dan McConnell, Chief Technologist at Booz Allen Hamilton, Dan O’Brien, President of HTC VIVE North America and John Cunningham, President of Virtualware USA and COO of VRARA. There is general agreement that to date, defense projects constitute the largest number of XR trials and projects with a lot of work done in training scenarios. What is less well known is how many of those projects achieve any kind of scale. The majority of the projects are part of innovation efforts to help change the way these functions work, so by definition they are still early and ahead of any wide deployment or adoption, but their perceived value is understood by many government agencies where innovation is part of the remit.
What is less well known is some of the success stories that can emerge in the darkest of places. In Ukraine, near the frontlines of battle, soldiers are using XR to treat post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The program is championed by a veteran who has partnered with neuroscientists to use HTC VIVE and game-like experiences that help address blood flow to parts of the brain that have been affected by PTSD. HTC’s Dan O’Brien said the program has shown remarkable results helping patients recover in weeks from something that commonly can take years if there is recovery at all. The key to the experience is treating the physical impacts, specifically blood flow, making it analogous to physical therapy treatments. The early results have been so promising the program is being expanded. It’s clear that no one on the Ukrainian side wants the war to continue, but the prospects of helping people recover is one of the many ways that XR and spatial services could be a game changer for other people in related scenarios.