Silvia Rossi, researcher in the Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS) group at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) contributed to SURF’s Tech Trend Report by sharing her expertise on Immersive Technology. ‘I was honored to represent our group and collaborate with national experts in the field to define emerging trends and envision possible future scenarios. Through this work, we hope to inspire and guide innovation in education and research around immersive technology,’ says Silvia.

Five trends within the field of Immersive Technology

Immersive Technology mainly consists of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), which are usually referred to collectively by the term Extended Reality (XR). Within the subject of Immersive Technology, a group of experts outlined the following five trends:

• AR and smart glasses are becoming more prominent

• Democratization of Extended Reality (XR) content creation using generative AI

• Increasing AI-enhanced user experience

• Growing big tech competition for the XR stack

• Public investments in XR continue to increase

While Silvia contributed to the elaboration of those five trends, her expertise was particularly valuable in shaping the trends related to AI-enhanced user experience and the democratization of XR content creation, which closely align with the current research at the DIS group.

Democratization of XR content creation using generative AI

The combination of AI and XR is now making it possible to create customized virtual learning environments more quickly. Creating VR worlds is becoming faster, cheaper and easier, even for non-technical people. For researchers, this trend means they can build experimental virtual setups much faster and use graphic material directly for their scientific work. This allows them to focus more on the research itself than on the technical creation. A clear example of this trend is the EU-funded TRANSMIXR project, where DIS researchers examined current XR production workflows and identified how new AI-powered tools can improve that process.

Increasing AI-enhanced user experience

Another important trend is that AI is fundamentally improving the user experience in XR. Thanks to AI, the immersive experience of users is getting more personalized, more realistic and more interactive in real-time. Not only does AI optimize graphics performance, but by tracking and analyzing movements it also makes the immersive experience adapt seamlessly to the user's needs and behaviors. This trend connect closely with Silvia Rossi’s research, which focuses on understanding navigation behaviour in immersive scenarios and using these insights to develop adaptive and scalable XR systems.

Read the full SURF Tech Trends Report