VR and AR Industry News - High fashion meets high tech and teams goes immersive

Dec 7

Tech News to Make You Smarter

Lancome Opened an Augmented Reality Boutique. Snap opened a "Winter Village" featuring luxury boutiques in augmented reality where visitors can shop products like you would during an in-store experience. Retail gained a lot with the shift to eCommerce, namely convenience and broader inventory but lost the in-person experience. With AI brands are losing digital storefronts too as people skip websites and shop through a chatbot. While you don't typically associate high fashion with high tech, it's not surprisingly that it's luxury brands exploring augmented experience first: a big part of their product is the in-store shopping experience. They have the most to loose, and potentially the most to gain if the get the new shopping experience right.
Microsoft acquired AltspaceVR in 2017, and in 2025, Altspace is coming for Microsoft Teams. This web VR feature allows Teams users to hold immersive events without a headset. Fun fact, back in 2018, we did our first ever startup pitch in Altspace VR with WXR Fund (throwback pic included)

The posts, memes, job postings, and videos that caught my attention this week:

Only Spotify can make collecting our data creepy but fun (Vannessa Jackson on Instagram)
December babies are 50% more likely to become CEOs (Kyle Cox on Instagram). As a December baby CEO, I approve this message. And did zero fact-checking.
Meta is hiring a Partnership Manager for Reality Labs.
Becoming a pilot = getting to fly to cool places (Pilot Elio on Instagram). Things we are learning while rolling out Flight Deck.

What we listened to this week

Amazon manager-turned-powerhouse entrepreneur explains how retail brands can survive AI. - A must-listen if you sell anything through a digital storefront (aka website). (YouTube)

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