XR for Business & Social Events

Olga Resnik
31 minutes ago
3 min read

Today I want to explore a use case that blends business and social interaction: how XR can bring real value to business events like conferences, expos, meetups, and networking gatherings.

Use Case: XR for Business & Social Events

These events are essential touchpoints in the professional world. From academics and engineers to marketing leads, biz dev professionals, and C-level executives — we all attend them to stay updated, reconnect with colleagues, and, most importantly, build new relationships and create fresh business opportunities.

But let’s be honest: these events can be overwhelming. The bigger they are, the harder it is to find the right people, focus our time, and get the most out of the experience. We invest time and money, yet often walk away with the feeling we’ve missed the best opportunities.

So, let’s explore how can XR help us navigate and maximize the value of these events?

XR Feature Analysis

🟩 Key Features

Display (Feature#1): Visuals are a must have in crowded venues, audio alone won’t cut it.
Smart Vision (Feature#7): AI-based object recognition (or even simple QR-based triggers) can personalize and automate content delivery. This creates the experience of personal tour guide presence, who’s there to provide explanations and stories about what the user’s looking at.

🟨 Trade-Offs

All other features are really add-ons for improving the functionality and adding more values on the basis of key features set.

AR Overlay (Feature#5): AR contextual overlay is helpful for visually connecting people and real-time data: think “name + role + shared interests” hovering over someone’s shoulder. This could create a constant connection and help you start the conversation.
3DoF (Feature#9): 3Dof tracking to keep the projected data steady during head movements. This feature has a direct connection to Feature#5 to create the AR overlay.
6DoF (Feature#10): 6DoF full spatial tracking can support spatial mapping of the venue, aiding navigation and easing the processing load from AI.
User Input (Feature#11): Voice control or even eye control via eye tracking enables personalization: the user can ask for more info, bookmark people, or flag leads.
System Output (Feature#12): Alternative or additional system-user communication such via audio can be helpful for name pronunciation, or quick language support when approaching someone from a different country.
Multi-User Interaction (Feature#13): This feature can add real-time team collaboration: colleagues can share insights and info with each other on the spot. This can further improve the collaboration and add teamwork.

Optional Enhancements vs Product Evolution

Most times when selecting the set of features there is a trade-off essentially setting the product market category, price and level. The key trade-off decision is how many of the optional feature you want to cover in the product today versus how many of them you want to postpone for future product evolution or upgrade.

This delicate decision can change everything. If the market doesn’t find the feature set and the use case, they cover valuable enough to prefer this product to an alternative, you may not have a second chance. That’s why we see products with as much features as could be squeezed in, and no clear use case focus.

The optional features can be either optional for the initial product or enhancements for future upgrade or a premium version of the basic product.

There is no one right answer to this question and the impact of the choices made is very profound.

Market Readiness

This application looks like something ready to go-to-market, as it doesn’t require complicated hardware – at least the basic version. We’ve also seen some attempts in this area, but still wide adoption is not there, even in the XR events where everyone works on or with XR....

This use case feels market ready. The basic version doesn’t demand heavy hardware, yet adoption is still very limited, even at XR-focused events. The interesting question is: Why?

Most XR hardware companies don’t believe in the minimal features hardware approach, they want to add more features, more value, cover more use cases, and the product grows is size, complexity, price point, the battery time goes down, and the user experience is compromised.

Could there, though be a room for this “lean” product? Is there a market fit for the minimum features smart glasses? This question remains open for the time being....

Having said that, you don't need to be stuck with this dilemma alone while developing your XR product or application. We can help with each step along the way using our expertise and experience in XR development. Whether selecting a platform already available in the market, or building a custom one, this is something JOYA Team can help with.

Contact us to learn more and develop your XR application together.