Hind Sergieh, Founder & CEO, Arkub InteractiveFor more then a decade, extended reality (XR) — the coming together of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) — lived between promise and practical adoption. It proved its value in tourism, culture, training and government services, yet rarely became central to agencies strategy.
XR wasn’t failing. It simply lacked the ecosystem required to scale: the ability to create content faster, personalise experiences in real-time and make the end-to-end development of immersive experiences far easier.
That missing layer has finally arrived — artificial intelligence (AI). Not as a replacement or reinvention, but as a completion.
From polished worlds to adaptive ones
The first wave of XR was defined by visual fidelity. High-resolution worlds and stable tracking were the quality benchmarks, but they weren’t enough to justify sustained investment. Marketers needed experiences that evolved with users — not environments that stayed fixed once deployed. With AI-driven interaction and spatial computing,
XR has crossed that threshold. Environments can interpret movement and predict intent. Voice, gaze and gesture become natural interaction modes. Digital content anchors contextually in physical space, enhancing coherence rather than adding visual noise.
As immersion becomes responsive and adaptive, XR shifts decisively from experimental showcases into a strategic, behaviour-driven creative layer.
Why AI makes XR commercially viable
AI resolves XR’s most persistent barrier: usability. By guiding users naturally through spatial experiences, AI lowers the learning curve and makes XR accessible to wider audiences — not just early adopters or tech-savvy users. It also reduces the cost and complexity of producing immersive content.
AI can automate asset creation, generate variations quickly, and adapt environments without manual rebuilding, giving brands and agencies faster turnaround and more flexibility.
Most importantly, AI can enable personalisation at scale — allowing XR to read user behaviour in real time and adjust the offering accordingly, making each interaction more relevant and commercially effective.
As AI expands what immersive environments can achieve, XR finally gains the scalability required to move into broader commercial measurable applications.
A turning point — not the destination
AI is changing the trajectory of XR — not by improving how it looks, but by transforming how it behaves and performs.
It gives XR clearer creative pathways and a stronger foundation for experiences that can continuously evolve over time. Yet— the technology is still maturing.
Hardware will keep shrinking, interfaces will refine and production pipelines will continue to streamline. This is not XR “coming back”. It is XR entering its next, more stable and integrated chapter.
Why the UAE Is positioned to lead
The UAE’s acceleration in AI-XR is shaped by a national vision that treats emerging technology as an economic catalyst rather then a peripheral experiment.
With AI embedded in government strategies and digital transformation initiatives, the groundwork for large-scale spatial experiences is already established.
Massive investments in advanced compute, hyperscale data centres, and talent development — including global research hubs and institutions such as MBZUAI — ensure the country has the infrastructure and expertise needed to fuel the next wave of AI-driven XR.
As a result, adoption is expanding naturally across tourism, education, training, retail, and public services. What differentiates the UAE is its ability to move sectors in alignment.
Clear vision, regulatory agility, strong infrastructure and a highly tech-literate population allow spatial experiences to scale coherently across cultural programs, public environments and flagship government initiatives. This coordinated ecosystem positions the UAE as a global contributor shaping how AI-powered XR evolves.
These conditions give brands and agencies the confidence to pilot ambitious concepts locally, knowing the supporting ecosystem can sustain experimentation, accelerate deployment and turn advanced immersive ideas into scalable, repeatable outcomes.
2026: XR joins the mainstream discussion
AI has pushed XR past the pilot stage, but what brings it into the mainstream is how easily it now fits within existing creative and production rhythms.
Teams can plan for XR the same way they plan for film, digital or experiential — with clearer timelines, known workflows and predictable outcomes.
Spatial content is also appearing in more everyday contexts, from retail environments to cultural programmes and public installations.
For audiences, XR arrives not as a showcase, but as a natural part of how they interact with a brand or space.
For agencies, this shift opens a wider creative canvas.
Those who embrace it early will shape the next chapter — at a moment when XR is ready for broader adoption, deeper integration and a realistic path into the mainstream.
By Hind Sergieh, Founder & CEO, Arkub Interactive
