VR & AR in the Age of AI
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are no longer some "cool tech demos." In the new era of AI they are becoming smarter, interactive and much more useful in real life. VR creates entirely digital worlds where one can step inside and experience as if it was physically present, whereas AR overlays digital objects and information into the real world using your phones, glasses or headsets. What's changing now is that it's being made to feel more natural, more personal and easier to create through AI.
One of the biggest ways that AI is improving VR and AR is through realistic interaction. In older systems, virtual objects often felt fake because they didn't react properly to the user. Now, AI is helping environments to respond to them more intelligently. For example, objects can have more natural behavior when touched, characters can understand what the user is doing, and the world can change in real-time. This makes VR and AR feel less like a simulation, and more like a real experience.
AI is also being used to change virtual characters and assistants in immersive worlds. Instead of NPCs saying the same things over and over again, AI-powered characters can have conversations, express emotions, and respond in different ways depending on the user's behavior. This results in more interesting storytelling and training experiences. In the case of VR learning or simulations, an AI instructor can help the user through step-by-step instruction, be able to answer questions, and be able to adjust to the user's progress - almost as if a personal coach were on hand to guide the user through the virtual world.
Another major improvement is creation of environment with Artificial Intelligence. Building VR and AR content used to take a lot of time, money and technical skills. Nowadays, AI tools are available to help generate 3D objects, textures, lighting and even entire environments much faster. Designers can build worlds with simple instructions or reference images, which makes the process of immersive content creation more accessible to beginners and smaller teams.
AI also has a lot to do with better tracking and understanding. VR and AR systems rely on monitoring the user's movement, hands and environment. AI helps enhance hand tracking, body tracking, eye tracking, and spatial mapping which helps make interactions smoother and more accurate. This is particularly crucial for AR because digital objects need to be appropriately positioned in the real world and react appropriately when the user moves around.
In addition, AI is also assisting in making VR and AR more personalized. Experiences can adapt according to user preferences, behavior or learning style. For example, a VR fitness app can vary in difficulty based on how tired the user is, or an AR learning tool can provide information differently based on the user's progress. This enables more meaningful experiences to arise rather than one-size-fits-all content.
In the future, the use of AI together with VR and AR will ensure that immersive technology becomes more prevalent in everyday life. We will see smarter training tools for education and healthcare, more realistic virtual meetings and collaboration, and AR experiences that feel seamless and helpful in the real world. Overall, AI is propelling VR and AR into the future by making them more intelligent, interactive, and easy to create - making immersive technology something more than just a cool, but actually a practical, engaging, and powerful technology.
S. M. Monowar Kayser
Lecturer, Department of Multimedia & Creative Technology (MCT)
Faculty of Science & Information Technology
Daffodil International University (DIU)
Daffodil Smart City, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh
