Elevating Aviation with Extended Reality - Unlocking the potential of Extended Reality & Immersive Experiences

Transcript

Bastian Schütz:Thank you so much. Hello everyone. I know it's always like the slot after lunch is always like the toughest one, but I will make it worthwhile for all of you. First of all, thank you so much for having me. Also, big thank you to the CAPA team for organizing this. Lovely event. My name is Bastian. I lead Meta's XR in Travel team, and I'm also part of the Meta Reality Labs team. And the Meta Reality Labs team is the team that Mark Zuckerberg introduced in 2021. And at that time, he not only changed the name of our company from Facebook to Meta, but he also changed the future of our company from a social media company with— I think we have around 4 billion monthly active users on our platforms.

Voiceover:Wow.

Bastian Schütz:Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to a company that is now fully invested into immersive technologies and artificial intelligence. And today we're going to talk about the immersive technologies, and we're also going to talk about AI. And we're going to talk about— we had this brilliant panel this morning. We talked about coming, getting from 1% AI adoption to 100% in the future. That's our role. We want to enable you to get there. So I always start my presentations with a question, and I would like to ask you to raise your hands. Who of you has ever tried a virtual reality headset in your life? Okay, these are, these are a couple. Sometimes I do presentations and no one is raising their hands, and it shows a little bit of the problem that we have in the market and Also something that we as technology companies don't do that well. We need to put more people into headsets. Today you actually have the opportunity to test those kind of devices. We have a little booth outside. We have a dedicated team that can show you what the future of immersive technology can hold for you. So I mentioned we're going to talk about the future today, but in order to understand the future, we need to understand the past. And our past has always been guided by one mission: build the future of human connection and the technology that actually makes it possible. And I think we did this quite well across all of our social media platforms— Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. But what many people don't know though is that already for a decade we have been investing into software, into hardware, but also into AI to empower our platforms. And while this includes our social media platforms, it also includes all of the different products that we have launched over the last decade. Last year, just to give you a little bit of an idea, last year we have invested over $40 billion in research and development. This year we're going to invest, I think, a total of $60 billion in research and development. And that money goes into building the metaverse as well as building the AI engine that is empowering our platforms. Just like to put this into perspective, $60 billion investment, that is 2.5 times the entire budget of NASA in 2025. And why, why are we investing so much money? Because we are deeply convinced that it will shape all of your futures, not only on an enterprise level but also on a very I mentioned it, for more than 10 years now we've already been following one vision, and that is building the next computing platform powered by virtual reality and augmented reality. And we believe that we are now at a point in time where technology will fundamentally change the way how people consume and engage with content. with content. And you have all recognized that many of the top airlines, including some of yours, have already invested into immersive technologies. We see more and more people bringing virtual reality headsets on board of airplanes and leveraging that new technology. And we also believe this is very much a natural evolution that is happening. Think about the natural evolution of the computer. The computer started as a bulky machine in your basement. It got smaller and quickly moved up to your desk as a laptop, and then it moved into your pockets. But what we believe is the next evolutionary stage is that the computer as well as the internet will move closer to your head. It will close— move closer to your eyes, to your senses, and it will allow you to really deeply engage with a variety of content, right? With headsets that are getting smaller and smaller and smaller. smaller and potentially in the future going to replace the smartphone. And since our inception, we've been dedicated to understanding how people want to connect and how they want to build richer connections with other communities, with content, but also with businesses. Our biggest 2 bets of the future, you can see them on the slide, are indeed artificial intelligence and the metaverse. And they rely very much on creating a growing ecosystem that everyone wants to be part of, which is empowered by Meta technology. And on that slide, I've got a couple of examples. You see the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Those ones are a version of it. They are a sleek glass-like form factor featuring an always-on and always-accessible Meta AI assistant. And they allow you to capture moments by taking pictures. Oh, it's I have to switch it on. By taking pictures, by taking videos, they even translate language to you. And this is all hands-free as well as display-free. Then we have Meta AI. Most of you have probably recognized it in your WhatsApp chat that you now have a little AI assistant that you can access to. So I need to switch it off, otherwise it's talking to me. But we already have a billion monthly active users of the Meta AI, and we plan to expand the usage and make your lives easier by you being able to tap into that AI assistant on a daily basis. And we have our large language models, Llama 4 it's called. It has been downloaded 100 million times already. And the most important piece with our language model is it's open source. So every one of you can actually download it, build on top of those language models without us charging you for it, which we believe is like deeply rooted in our company's history to provide those open-source solutions. So now let's explore how those immersive technologies are already transforming your business today. And I brought a couple of examples, but in the last decade, virtual and mixed reality has really become way more than just a gadget, right? It has been— it has become a new way of engaging with very critical content. And there are still huge challenges in the market, right? Those challenges are mainly affordability, scalability, and effectiveness. But the industry over the last years has made a huge leap in addressing those challenges. And we have launched more affordable virtual reality headsets and mixed reality headsets. The Meta Quest 3 that I just showed you is a Great example. It's like a 500-gram device. It doesn't require a cable. It has a powerful processor. It lasts for 2 to 3 hours. And you get that as a price point of around $500. And that's also the reason why many of the Fortune 500 companies have already adopted this kind of technologies, including some of the companies that are in this room right here. Just to give an example, Air France-KLM, they've just introduced an innovation hub. Part of that innovation hub are also Quest 3 devices. We have a great example with Accenture. Accenture is actually deploying 50,000 Quest headsets for onboarding each and every new person that joins the company, all in virtual and mixed reality. And on the slide, there are a couple of more areas where extended reality is already significant for you and can actually create an immediate return on investment, right? And that includes cabin crew training, that includes product presentations. By the way, if you want to see that, we have that on our— at our booth, so you can give it a try. It also includes critical maintenance, engine maintenance, airport ground operation trainings, and most recently, also our investment into changing the future of in-flight entertainment by integrating headsets on board of an airplane. And we believe that, as I mentioned, our technology has the power to transform the in-flight experience, allowing passengers to really engage with content in a completely new but also immersive way. And while it's not something that we only deeply believe in, it's actually something that we've already brought to life. Middle of last year, we partnered with Lufthansa and we brought over 300 headsets to Several thousands of passengers on board of an airplane, all in Lufthansa's new Allegris business class. And actually, it was a big hit, right? We saw high take rates, we saw overwhelmingly good feedback, and most importantly for all of you, we saw a positive impact on the NPS score, which indeed drives more adoption of those technologies on board. And I'm actually very excited to share 2 things. First of all, we've just announced the extension of our partnership With Lufthansa now bringing new and immersive, exciting content on board of new airplanes across the entire Lufthansa Group. That will include in the future Austrian Airways. That also will include Swiss as well as Discover Airlines. And secondly, we've started collaborating with some of the leading in-flight entertainment providers to integrate hardware onto their systems. So really unlocking immersive content on board of the in-flight server. And that has 2 big advantages. Yeah. First of all, as a passenger, when you receive a headset by an airline, the airline is able to provide you with a huge amount of immersive content that is now on board. And it also has the advantage for those people bringing headsets on board of an airplane, like a BYOD, bring your own device case, because they now can tap into exclusive content that the airline is hosting on board of the server. And I'm excited to share even more Talking about the future. At the beginning, I mentioned that we are doing a significant investment into hardware, and the reason is pretty simple. We believe that it is the answer to the question, what comes after the smartphone? So this year in September, we launched the next chapter of immersive technology. Let me introduce to you the Meta Ray-Ban displays. Let's take a look, and we need to put on—

Voiceover:Hold on.

Bastian Schütz:And you see me, I've just switched glasses. As mentioned, we just introduced the Meta Ray-Ban displays at our developer conference Connect in September. They are the most advanced commercially available AI glasses we've ever built so far, and they have a high-resolution display integrated into the right lens of the display, which is pretty cool because while not yet having a full display, the screen is already large enough for you to enjoy short movies, watch messages, and you can do amazing stuff with it. That starts with like, you can privately view text and multimedia messages from your phone hands-free, all shown in that display. You can get where you need to go with phone-free walking directions, navigations displayed, and that's also what you can see on the slide. And my very personal favorite feature It can display captions for the speech that is directed to you and translate selected languages in real time, and you can read that language in this display. That's pretty amazing. And all of this while you can stay engaged and stay present without looking at your smartphone. The idea is you look up and look people in their eyes like we normally did in the past. To be clear, this is not a prototype. The Meta Ray-Ban glasses are already commercially available. You can get them in the US and you will soon also get them outside of the US as well as in Europe. But yeah, so we now understand what is already available today. Let's take a look into the future. And as mentioned at the beginning, we believe that we are now at a point in time where technology will fundamentally change the way people consume and engage with content. And last year we shared our long-term vision for technology that will keep you engaged throughout the entire journey. And in the future, what we actually want is we want to build solutions that are immersive technology that really seamlessly integrates into the in-flight entertainment system, enabling you to effortlessly navigate at airport, any kind of airport you travel to, and that also allow you to enjoy your favorite entertainment content wherever you are on the travel journey. Thank you, Bastian.

Voiceover:Johnny.

Bastian Schütz:This, however, can only be built with technology that is more advanced than everything we have built so far. Let me introduce to you now Orion. Orion are the first real augmented reality glasses prototype that shows Meta's future vision. Again, to be clear, Orion is still a prototype and it's not commercially available yet in the market. But it will be in the next few years. Let's take a look.

Voiceover:Comets are not going to be enabled by AI. We're not going to be here in the 2030s communicating and using computing devices that are exactly the same as what we have today. And someone has to build that and believe in it. I'm at an event in a damn time machine. Hi, Nora! Daddy's calling from the future. I'm wearing these amazing AR glasses that you'll probably use when you grow up. Over the next 10 years, the form factor is just going to keep on getting smaller and smaller, and eventually we're going to have what looks like normal glasses. You're looking at the culmination of decades of breakthrough inventions in nearly every field of computing. It's one of the hardest challenges the tech industry's ever attempted. See, Orion is a time machine. It'll let Meta live in the future as they build the next generation of AR experiences.

Bastian Schütz:Yeah, I'm always getting excited watching that video because of the amount of work that has been put into this. I actually didn't switch glasses because I don't have the Orion glasses here. We only show those Orion glasses to selected partners across the world. You would need to come to San Francisco to get a look at it. But that shows like the importance of that device for the future. And the idea is to show what comes over the next years, putting out the North Star and letting everyone understand what we are working towards to and already give you an opportunity to become part of that journey. You envisioning what is happening with that kind of technology in the future and then us together building that future. I mentioned it, Orion is the world's most advanced AR experience, augmented reality experience, in a glass form factor. As mentioned, it's a prototype. It's not available yet. But different to the Meta Ray-Ban glass, Meta Ray-Ban displays that I introduced before, Orion will have full lens displays on both sides, really bridging the physical and the virtual world. So why is this technology fundamentally different and will fundamentally shape our everyday life? I think there are 3 main reasons. Reason number one is they enable digital experiences beyond smartphone screens, right? With large holographic displays in your field of view that allow you to access 2D and 3D content. Second, it integrates contextual AI that senses and understands your environment and anticipates your needs. Think about you being at an airport And the glasses immediately understand where you are, scanning your environment, understanding where you need to go, but also giving you all of the information on flight status, flight delays, etc. And third, they are lightweight, right? Those ones are not lightweight yet. They're getting there. They are 500 grams, but where we actually want to get is to that kind of form factor and even smaller. Orion glasses have Around 100 grams. I think they're even lighter than those ones. And that's the future. That's what everyone can get behind it, that everyone can actually bring on board of an airplane or wear across the entire user journey. So the areas of applications for those augmented reality glasses such as Orion are more or less Endless. I tapped into a couple of them, but imagine using a private virtual screen to enjoy any in-flight movie on a large private cinema screen on board of an airplane in every cabin, not only limited to business and first class, but also in economy class with limited space. Think about an AI-driven travel companion that I just mentioned that navigates you through any airport in the world. Keeps you updated on flight status during flight and tells you about your favorite sightseeing spots at your destination. Or imagine a completely new way of advertising and selling products spatially on board, right? Turning your high bandwidth connectivity costs that you have into new revenue streams. All of that is delivered in a compact form factor enabling for hours of comfortably wearing them and enjoying content across all categories— wellness, destination content, travel content— but also staying productive and having virtual screens that you can work on, connecting those glasses directly with your laptop, or don't even requiring a laptop in the future anymore. Okay, today I hope I was able to give you a glimpse of the future. let me say one more important thing, or maybe 2 more important things. First of all, our role in this sphere is very clear, and that was shown this morning with this 1% adoption rate so far by airlines of AI. We want to bring you to this 2%, 3%, 5%, 10%, 100% of AI adoption, increasing efficiency and leveraging AI at the best— in the best way possible. And the second thing is, the only way we can accomplish this future is to create the most meaningful experiences for those passengers is by partnering with all of you, right? By sharing our knowledge that we have and hoping that you share your knowledge with us so that in the end we can build the technology that shapes the future of those 5 billion airline passengers globally. You will have our commitment that we're going to continue investing into the hardware, into the software, and into the AI backbone to empower those technologies. And as I said, if you want to try some of this technology today, visit our booth that we just have behind the door and experience what the future of immersive technology holds for you. And with that, I want to— that was the last slide. I want to thank you very much for your time. And if you have any questions, please let me know. I think we even have a tool to get all of those questions. But I appreciate you taking the time, and I was— I hope I could inspire you about the future of immersive technologies. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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