0B Keynote Jeremy Dalton: The Future of Immersive Experiences
Jeremy Dalton, Head of Metaverse Technologies at PwC, delivered a keynote on the evolution and future of immersive technologies, sharing insights from his extensive experience in the field.
Jeremy Dalton, expert in immersive technologies and author of Reality Check, gave a keynote followed by an interview with moderator Monique van Dusseldorp. The session opened with a brief look at Dalton's professional background, emphasizing not just his thought leadership but his hands-on experience in building and deploying immersive technology solutions across multiple platforms and industries.
Dalton shared that he founded PwC's dedicated VR/AR team, where he led projects involving 360° video, VR180, volumetric capture, mobile and desktop applications, headset deployment, projection systems, and LED volumes. These experiences, he stressed, were more than technical exercises—they were designed to solve real-world challenges and bring meaningful value to organizations and users. He underlined the global scope of his work, referencing headset deployments in the tens of thousands worldwide, and his role as an industrial supervisor for multiple PhD programs focused on immersive applications in industrial settings. Collaboration between industry and academia, he noted, is critical to the evolution of this field.
Dalton's book, Reality Check, is about to release its second edition—an update that reflects recent shifts in the immersive landscape. He joked that if no one had read the first edition, that simply meant there was now a large potential customer base in the room.
To frame the current status of immersive technologies, Dalton referenced the well-known "hype cycle" graph. He reminded the audience of the Metaverse hype, which he half-jokingly called "the M-word"—a reference to how quickly the industry had to distance itself from inflated promises and unmet expectations. According to Dalton, the field is now emerging from the "trough of disillusionment" and entering a phase of pragmatic, sustainable application.
"Not every technology follows this curve," he noted. Some, like 3D TVs, flare up and disappear. Others, like email and spreadsheets, never become media darlings but grow steadily due to their utility. Immersive tech, he argued, is now maturing beyond headline-grabbing hype and vanity projects, toward solutions that offer measurable value—be it ROI for businesses or social impact through art and human connection.
Illustration by Suus van den Akker
Dalton emphasized that this isn't the first hype cycle for VR—nor will it be the last. The key, he said, is to avoid overreacting to the highs and lows. "We've seen this before," he told a room that included many long-time industry professionals. What matters now is moving forward with purpose and clarity.
To illustrate the momentum, Dalton shared a high-level overview of where immersive experiences are delivering value today. He distinguished between business and consumer contexts, highlighting use cases in retail, location-based entertainment, live event augmentation, museums, cultural heritage, and tourism. He likened the current state of immersive entertainment to the early days of video game arcades—suggesting we are at a formative stage, poised for broader adoption.
Dalton then presented a series of case studies, beginning with a particularly compelling project developed during his time at PwC. Initially designed as an internal VR training tool using volumetric video, the application was deployed to 25,000 employees on standalone headsets. The user feedback was so strong that it led to the product being adapted for consumer use.
To demonstrate impact, Dalton shared results from an empathy study conducted in collaboration with the University of Surrey. Participants who experienced the training on a standard desktop showed increased empathy, but those who experienced the exact same content in virtual reality showed significantly higher empathy scores. The only variable was the medium—underscoring, in his words, "the power of immersion." This, he argued, provides empirical evidence for why immersive formats can matter deeply in contexts like education, training, and social storytelling.
Throughout the session, Dalton returned to a consistent theme: immersive technologies are no longer the stuff of speculative fiction or glossy demos. They are becoming mature tools for solving concrete problems—in business, in culture, and in society.
As the session concluded, Dalton left the audience with a clear message: the hype may come and go, but meaningful, thoughtfully applied immersive experiences are here to stay.
Jeremy Dalton, who leads the PwC Metaverse Technologies team, outlines how immersive tech is shifting toward long-term, purposeful applications that combine AI, user focus, and ethical considerations.
Transcript
My main message today at the CIIIC annual meetup is that we've moved away from short-term hype-fueled thinking in the IX industry, and we're now interested in more sustainable, long-term investments that add real value to both businesses and society. Immersive experiences can supercharge your business in a multitude of ways, from improving training to creating more efficient sales and marketing processes to allowing for closer collaboration between individuals all over the world. Immersive experiences can improve creativity and the creative industries in a lot of different ways. One is we're seeing completely new forms of art that we've never experienced before. And secondly, we can start to combine the physical and the digital world together in unprecedented ways, using the real world as a canvas instead of our 2D computer screens. In the field of immersive technologies, the biggest trends I'm seeing right now are: one, the integration of AI with IX to create even more powerful experiences than ever before, and two, the improvements in the hardware, creating smaller, lighter, more invisible form factors that will become more accepted by mainstream society. We have to take great care with immersive technologies because the technology is so powerful, it is capable of creating intense human emotions that need to be managed, as well as we have to worry about the data protection elements. When it comes to data, immersive experiences have to be taken care of because there are far greater forms of data that are potentially released with immersive experiences, and those data sets are far more intrusive than what is possible to collect on regular websites and 2D applications. My biggest advice for CIIIC is to consider the convergence of emerging technologies. So if we consider what virtual reality can do alone, what augmented reality can do alone, what AI can do alone, then that doesn't create the fullest picture for us and doesn't give us the greatest opportunity compared to what AI and IX could do together. Three things to promote immersive experiences in the most successful way. One is user-centric design. Always consider the friction of the end user and how you can make it as seamless and easy as comfortable as possible for them. Secondly, ensure you create high quality content that is relevant to their problem. And finally, make sure you are building immersive experiences with a clear, inarguable purpose. They're not a silver bullet and they shouldn't be used as a solution to every problem. But where you've identified that they are the correct solutions to a problem, you'll find a lot of value if you pursue them. There are significant challenges in the adoption of IX technologies, everything from physical challenges to psychological, sociological challenges. So keeping your user at the center of your experience as you explore this technology will be absolutely key to its success.