How AI Could Supercharge AR and VR

Membership in ACM includes a subscription to Communications of the ACM (CACM), the computing industry's most trusted source for staying connected to the world of advanced computing. Once artificial intelligence is added to augmented and virtual reality devices, it could take the technology mainstream. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spent billions of dollars year after year to develop augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies, without much financial return to show for it. The company has spent north of $80 billion since 2014 on the technologies since acquiring Oculus, a VR hardware startup, including $20 billion in 2024 alone. In that time, it has lost billions on AR/VR, with products like its Quest headset consistently operating at a loss.