8th Annual AR/VR Year in Review — The Year of Convergence

2025 marked a turning point in spatial computing. The momentum shifted from hardware hype to system harmony — where AR, VR, and AI began to operate not as separate domains but as one connected field. This wasn’t the year of flashy demos; it was the year the stack matured.

In this session, we’ll explore how the landscape evolved across every layer.
We’ll begin with the market pulse — how valuations, regional growth, and sector adoption set the tone for the year. Then we’ll dive into the hardware reality: the headsets, glasses, and wearables that shaped both consumer and enterprise experiences. From there, we’ll step into the chip race, looking at how Apple’s M5 and Qualcomm’s XR2+ Gen 2 changed the performance envelope and opened new possibilities for design.

We’ll then move through the platform and SDK layer, where visionOS, Android XR, and OpenXR began defining clear ecosystems for spatial experience creation. We’ll explore the AI integrations that turned interfaces into collaborators — powering real-time understanding, adaptive context, and multimodal interaction. And finally, we’ll look forward — into 2026 and beyond — at how this convergence sets the stage for the first true era of ecosystem compounding, where human experience, intelligence, and immersion move as one.