The Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA) Podcast

In this episode, AR for Enterprise Alliance Executive Director Mark Sage sits down with Kristen Naeini, RealWear's Head of Sales for the Americas. RealWear is a leading force in voice-enabled, wearable technology for frontline workers. Kristen shares her personal journey from engineering into enterprise XR, and how RealWear’s mission is rooted in enabling safer, more efficient work environments—especially in challenging industria...

In this episode, AREA Executive Director Mark Sage chats with Troy Wood, Executive Director of Marketing at HTC.

Troy shares what fuels his passion for XR and why he sees the AREA as a critical force in shaping the industry’s future. He reflects on HTC’s leadership role and emphasizes how collaboration through AREA helps address real barriers to enterprise XR adoption—like standardization, awareness, and ecosystem maturity.

As the ...

In this episode, AR for Enterprise Alliance Executive Director Mark Sage sits down with Edgar Rojas, Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University, and a passionate advocate for extended reality (XR) as the interface of the future. Edgar shares how his work at the intersection of the College of Performance Visualization and Fine Arts and the Laboratory for Ocean Innovation is redefining how augmented, virtual, and mixed reality...

In this episode, AR for Enterprise Alliance executive director Mark Sage chats with with Shelley Peterson, Founder & CEO of Wizard Wells. Shelley shares hard-won insights from her time driving immersive technology adoption at Lockheed Martin and now advising startups and enterprises on XR strategy. She breaks down what it really takes to scale XR solutions—from overcoming skepticism and aligning with mission-critical outcomes...

In this episode, AR for Enterprise Alliance executive director Mark Sage chats with Mark Knowles-Lee, CEO of Fracture Reality. Fracture Reality develops JoinXR, a collaboration platform for AR headsets used in manufacturing, engineering, and a variety of enterprise applications. Knowles-Lee discusses the evolution of spatial collaboration and how it is redefining enterprise productivity. He describes emerging ways to empower ente...

In this episode, OMG Chairman & CEO Bill Hoffman chats with Gan Wang, VP Systems Engineering Ecosystem, at Dassault Systèmes. Gan walks through his organization's vision for the Generative Economy, a technology roadmap for a 3D universe to be realized by 2040. The universe will combine modeling and simulation techniques based on real world evidence and data with AI-generated content.

Gan explains that in this Industrial Metaver...

In this edition, AREA Executive Director Mark Sage chats with Ryan Orwoll, VP Product Management of the Vuforia Enterprise AR Group at PTC.

Ryan breaks down how enterprises are turning augmented reality (AR) into real business wins, despite ongoing challenges such as integration complexity and change management.

The conversation dives into high-impact use cases across manufacturing, field service, and training, showing where AR is ...

In this edition, AREA Executive Director Mark Sage chats with Alex Taylor, CEO of Net4. They discuss how Net4 is enabling XR use cases across industries by partnering with 5G providers to deliver secure, low-latency solutions over both public and private networks.

Despite the clear benefits of combining XR and 5G-like improved performance and immersive experiences, widespread deployment is lagging due to coverage gaps, device limit...

In this episode, AREA Executive Director Mark Sage chats with AR/XR expert Dr. Brent Dingle, Applied Research Engineer and Consultant at Raytheon, an RTX Company.

Brent describes how the XR work of his team is helping to drive Raytheon's vision. He talks about lessons he's learned to overcome challenges in AR implementations, such as how to successfully incorporate change.

Brent discusses insights he has gained over time, such as t...

In this episode, the AREA's Mark Sage chats with Deborah Kiefer of the School Engineering & Computer Science, at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. They discuss the university's AR Center (ARC), where Deborah is the Project Manager. ARC focuses on research, education, and best practices in AR in business. Topics include:

- The origins and mission of the ARC, and  the synergy between AR...

In this episode, the AREA's Mark Sage chats with Ashley Stowe, Director of the Oak Ridge Enhanced Technology and Training Center, a uranium enrichment manufacturing facility that provides AR training for first responders dealing with emergencies featuring nuclear and other highly hazardous materials. They discuss: 

- Effective immersive training for dangerous environments - Challenges of moving from AR...

MBDA's Salvatore Errico, Industrial Digital Engineer, and Greg White, Design Tools Capability Lead, discuss AR/XR use cases in defense manufacturing and training. They examine the most important and impactful outcomes of XR deployment, including:

- Alignment with operational goals

- Workflow transformation

- Measurable benefits, such as efficiency and safety improvements

- The biggest challenges in implementing XR solutions

Please ...

How can enterprises address unique vulnerabilities introduced by XR devices,  while ensuring compliance with their existing IT security frameworks? How can they benefit from engaging with the AREA Security Committee initiatives?

James Cooper,  Chief Technologist, Advanced Visualization at Raytheon (an RTX Company), and Chair of the AREA Security Committee, answers these and other questions about bringing AR/XR into the enterprise. ...

Christine Perey, AREA Founder, chats with Jameson Spivack, Senior Policy Analyst at the Future of Privacy Forum about the privacy challenges in enterprise AR.

AI and computer vision advancements could address concerns over privacy in data collection and handling. Privacy and sensitivity to security risks from the use of cameras and other sensors in the workplace continue to be obstacles to large-scale AR deployments. 

Privacy is th...

Christine Perey chats with Ognjen Todic, CEO of Keen Research. They discuss emerging ways to interact with AR, including voice and speech.

New modes of interaction are examined in Christine's Top 12 blog: "Top 2024 Enterprise AR Trends to Watch." Read it here: https://thearea.org/top-2024-enterprise-ar-trends-to-watch/

#6 and #7 are related to the User Experience, as new modes of interaction are beginning to complement/replace/disp...

AREA Executive Director Mark Sage chats with AREA Founder Christine Perey to congratulate her on being named to Augmented World Expo's (AWE)'s inaugural XR Hall of Fame class.

The XR Hall of Fame is a new institution dedicated to honoring the pioneers whose monumental contributions have shaped and propelled the extended reality (XR) industry forward. 

More on AWE's XR Hall of Fame: https://lavnch.com/lavnchcode/awe-announces-xr-hal...