AiThority Interview with Elliott Jobe, Chief Innovation Officer and Co-Founder at Infinite Reality

Hi Elliott. Welcome to our Interview Series. Please tell us a little bit about your role and responsibilities in your current company. How did you arrive at Infinite Reality?

I have been lucky enough to work most of my career in Hollywood helping top creatives leverage new technology to bring fresh experiences to life for audiences. When COVID hit, I was presented with an opportunity to create a virtualized Burning Man experience since the iconic festival wouldn’t be held for the first time in over 30 years. The whole idea of virtual events and immersive experiences really accelerated during the pandemic to the point that we now view remote work and Zoom meetings to be standard practice. Our expectations have shifted dramatically in the past 3 years and that shift has created greater opportunity to take events, entertainment, and ecommerce to a new level of engagement and personalization. I’m excited to be leading the team as Chief Innovation Officer.

What is Infinite Reality and what are your core offerings?

In November 2022, we announced a suite of immersive digital technology products that redefine how people experience live events and online shopping. The groundbreaking INFINITE SKYBOX, INFINITE SHOWROOM, and INFINITE MAINSTREET are plug-and-play virtual environments that disrupt how creators and brands engage with their audiences.

INFINITE SKYBOX is a revolutionary media distribution platform designed to give audiences the ultimate fan experience. It transforms passive viewing of sports and entertainment  into virtual watch parties where people can invite their friends and other like minded fans to share the experience. Media firms can directly connect with their consumers, attract new ones, enhance engagement, and earn additional revenue — turning viewers into users.  INFINITE SKYBOXes are customizable and include several streaming screens, live video/audio proximity chat, an NFT gallery, ecommerce/merchandise store, and social engagement zones.

INFINITE SHOWROOM elevates the direct-to-consumer shopping experience and eliminates some of the challenges of ecommerce like high rates of cart abandonment and product returns. Through interactive virtual storefronts with a photorealistic brick-and-mortar feel, brands create personalized shopping experiences for customers, complete with interactive product showrooms and galleries, to make the sale in real-time via video, audio, and/or text chat. An INFINITE SHOWROOM provides access to rich customer data, enabling deeper connections between retailers and customers to increase brand loyalty, engagement, and lifetime customer value.

INFINITE MAINSTREET provides brands with their own virtual entertainment and shopping district where they can drive value by monetizing adjacency with other brands, influencers, and celebrities. Customers and fans enjoy unlimited ways to engage with and discover more about the brands, teams, artists, and celebrities they love in a commerce-rich environment.

Recommended: AiThority Interview with Oji Udezue, Chief Product Officer at Typeform

What is the driving force behind introducing AI for delivering immersive experiences?

The consumer and fan experiences are the driving force behind Infinite Reality’s decision to use AI. Using the latest AI technology, INFINITE SKYBOX gives participants a personalized viewing experience offering content recommendations and targeted ads based on their viewing and purchase history. More importantly, the new AI-enabled capabilities in all Infinite Reality products and experiences will allow users to access real-time engagement with avatar salespeople who can be quickly and intuitively trained on a brand’s products and services and a consumer’s individual  preferences.

Do you think AI augments human experience, or does it reduce human-level personalization particularly when we take examples in the immersive content landscape?

Example response:

In the immersive content landscape, I think AI has the ability to improve the human experience. Immersive experiences can be customized to the user with AI-powered personalization, making the experience more interesting and memorable. The immersive experience can be improved by using AI to help develop virtual environments that are more engaging and lifelike. This technology removes the tyranny of distance and opens the world for exploration by anyone with a computer and internet connection. Imagine the possibilities in education, entertainment, and  healthcare.

Overall, I believe that AI has the potential to greatly enhance human experience in the immersive content landscape, as long as it is used in conjunction with human-level personalization and interaction.

Please tell us more about your immersive fan experience model. Which industries would benefit from your product?

Our immersive fan experience model has immense potential for various industries, including entertainment, sports, music, and gaming. Our partnership with Warner Brothers Discovery Sport is a prime example of the endless possibilities that immersive experiences in the Metaverse present. It’s not a replacement for live events or broadcast, but rather a natural evolution of the fan experience in the digital age.

These immersive experiences offer fans the opportunity to engage with their favorite content in an entirely new way, enhancing customer engagement and providing a next-level experience. It’s not just about expanding distribution channels, but also about creating a unique and unforgettable experience for fans.. As I mentioned earlier, the  application of this technology goes far beyond entertainment and ecommerce. The potential in education, health care, politics, and culture is truly unlimited.

Recommended: AiThority Interview with Chris Maeda, Co-Founder & CTO at Botco.ai

You say that your AI software would act as a “content ambassador.” Could you please elaborate on this idea?

Essentially, it’s like having your best friend introduce you to their favorite TV  show, band, or sports team. Your friend already knows your interests and uses their understanding of the  content to help inform what you would like about it.

For ecommerce, this new AI-enabled feature set  provides a white-glove personal shopping experience by shepherding customers through the shopping process and curating the endless choices open to them. It brings the art of in-person sales assistance to online shopping via an AI avatar salesperson. We are hearing over and over again that brands and creators want to develop their own custom experiences for more direct control and delivery. The key is to help them leverage better customer insights for personalized recommendations that can excite and motivate fans, driving more views and transactions and building more authentic relationships.

What kind of reskilling would artists need to compete with AI-generated content / AI artists?

It’s less about reskilling and more about emphasizing the skills that best complement the latest tool for creation. Great experiences happen when creatives focus on the emotional impact they want to cultivate in their audience/customer. Putting oneself in the audience or customers’ seat, and making content and format decisions around that, is something that an emotional being like a human, and especially an artist, is best equipped to create. Trying to compete with tools that can enhance the audience experience makes a lot less sense than asking the question, how can this tool help me create a better experience for the audience/customer?

Your take on the future of AI-driven AR VR content and gaming experiences: where do you see IR heading to in the near future?

IR will continue to help our customers create the most compelling experiences possible. We see AI as one more tool to offer an even more engaging and immersive level of experience for the audience/consumer. The more quickly and intuitively audiences can find their chosen entertainment experiences and desired products, the more everyone benefits.

Recommended: AiThority Interview with Rick Farnell, Chief Executive Officer of Tracer

An event/ conference or podcast that you have subscribed to consume information about the B2B technology industry: If invited, would you like to be part of a podcast episode on IT/ Data Ops, CX and B2B SaaS?

Yes absolutely, I would like to participate.

Thank you, Elliott! That was fun and we hope to see you back on AiThority.com soon.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]