18 Dec 2024 | AWE Team
End of the Year Recap: XR in 2024 – A Breakthrough Year?
XR Trends News Virtual Reality Augmented Reality

As 2024 comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on the major milestones, trends, and innovations that defined the XR industry through the lens of AWE. These highlights were featured throughout the year in our Weekly Spatial Newsletter, where we keep you up-to-date with the latest news and trends in XR. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, we encourage you to subscribe to the Weekly Spatial Newsletter and never miss an update!

With three in-person events—AWE USA, AWE EU, and AWE Asia—alongside numerous AWE Nite meetups around the world and online gatherings, it was a year of breakthroughs, new hardware, enterprise adoption, and a surge in developer engagement. Let’s break down some of the biggest highlights and trends we saw this year.


XR Hardware Boom: The Great XR Race

2024 was a massive year for XR hardware. The XR race heated up with major announcements and product launches:

  • Apple Vision Pro: Launched preorders in January at $3,500, setting a new standard for mixed reality;

  • Meta Quest 3S: Affordable MR headset announced at Meta Connect 2024;

  • Meta Orion AR Glasses: The most advanced AR glasses Meta was announced;

  • Snap Spectacles: Fifth-gen Spectacles powered by Snap OS;

  • Pico 4 Ultra: Launched in August, enhancing standalone MR experiences;

  • XREAL Air 2 Ultra, Beam, and Beam Pro: Expanding the AR hardware market;

  • Sony’s Spatial MR Headset: Focused on productivity, launching by year’s end.

For a high-energy recap of the XR hardware race Check out the XR Race Animation




XR Industry Highlights in 2024

Weekly Spatial Recap Stats
We kept you updated through our Weekly Spatial newsletter, and here are some stats that tell the story of 2024:

Top companies mentioned in the weekly spatial, based on the number of stories we reported on in 2024.

1. Apple
2. Meta
3. Google
4. HTC
5. Microsoft
6. Snap
7. Samsung

Key categories that were covered are hardware, software innovations, and investments.

Top 5 XR Market Stories Based on Funding and Acquisition Amounts

  1. Infinite Reality Acquires Digital Twin Company Landvault

    • Value: $450 Million

    • Details: Landvault developed over 1.2 million square feet of virtual experiences for major brands like Mastercard and Hershey. (Source: Auganix)

  2. Cosm Raises $250 Million To Build Immersive Sports Experiences Worldwide

    • Value: $250 Million

    • Details: The investment supports immersive sports experiences on giant LED screens. (Source: Huddle Up)

  3. Praktika Raises $35.5 Million for AI-Powered Language Learning Avatars

    • Value: $35.5 Million

    • Details: Praktika uses personalized AI avatars to simulate private tutoring sessions. (Source: TechCrunch)

  4. Basemark Raises €22 Million in Series B Funding

    • Value: €22 Million (~$24 Million)

    • Details: Basemark focuses on automotive AR software and plans to expand in Europe, Japan, China, and South Korea. (Source: Auganix)

  5. Vuzix Secures $20 Million Strategic Investment from Quanta

    • Value: $20 Million

    • Details: The investment supports waveguide production and AR/AI smart glasses development. (Source: Auganix)

For more insights regarding this year's most notable investments in the XR sector, check out our blog post on 2024 XR Market: Key Trends, Top Investments, and a Month-by-Month Recap.


Trends: Developers Flocking to Spatial Computing

One of the most exciting trends this year was the influx of developers entering the spatial computing space. The enthusiasm was clear through record-breaking participation in competitions and hackathons that AWE supported. Thousands of young creators, developers ( many mobile developers ) trying out the new computing wave) participated in initiatives either organized by AWE, like the Start-up Pitch Competitions in both USA and EU, but also events we partnered with like Global XR Hack 2024 (over 520 hackers from 32 countries participated in one of the largest XR hackathons, with events held in London, Stockholm, Istanbul, and Cologne), MIT Reality Hack (500 hackers), Stanford XR Hackathon (200), HarvardXR, XR design Challenge (2500 designers!) and many more.

Some of the winners of these competitions were invited to join AWE EU in Vienna to showcase their innovations in the expo hall.

For 2025, we’re committed to supporting even more of these initiatives as XR continues its path toward mainstream adoption.

Jeremy Dalton’s Picture from LinkedIn


Enterprise Adoption on the Rise

XR is transforming industries, and this year saw an increase in enterprise adoption. Companies showcased how they are leveraging XR at AWE USA, AWE EU, and AWE Asia, some of the top brands that were present at AWE this year include:





These enterprises demonstrated how XR is solving real-world challenges, improving collaboration, and driving innovation. This is the year we invested more in our enterprise program facilitating access to relevant information and curated networking opportunities.


Insights and Hottest Topics

Select Insights from Mike Boland
Mike Boland’s XR insights highlighted the growing intersection of AI and XR, the maturation of AR marketing, and the steady rise of spatial computing in consumer tech.

One of the talks and blog posts that got a lot of traction was the one about the advancements in GenAI and how they result in endless creative possibilities in augmented reality. Read about this exciting conversation between Bobby Murphy, Paige Piskin and Mike Boland.

Top 2024 Topics on YouTube
Our most-viewed videos focused on hardware launches, spatial computing trends, and developer insights, reflecting a keen interest in where XR is heading. In total these top videos got close to 500k impressions on our channel

  1. IKEA's Journey Through 3D Visualization and Spatial Computing By Martin Enthed

  2. Decentralized AI Perception: How Collaborative Spatial Computing brings AI to Retail By Nils Pihl

  3. Visionaries: Palmer Luckey and Darshan Shankar

  4. What's Next for AR: From Spatial Displays to Spatial Computing By Chi Xu

  5. Hologram Technology Overview for 2024 By Tracy Evans

    Last, but not least we all know by now that 2024 was huge for mixed reality. This analysis does a pretty good job in capturing the shift in our industry.


Looking Forward to 2025: From Breakthrough to Mainstream


“When you land on things that really hit the mark, like mixed reality on Quest 3 or AI on glasses, that’s when you put your foot on the gas” - Andrew Bosworth, Meta CTO

2024 may have been a breakthrough year, but 2025 promises to be the year XR goes mainstream, and the quote above from Meta’s CTO really sets the tone for what we can expect.

To gauge where we are, we’d love to hear from you!

Survey: How do you know when XR has hit the mainstream?
Choose from these options or add your own thoughts:

  1. Market size growth.

  2. Number of XR units sold.

  3. User adoption percentage.

  4. XR awareness in mainstream media.

Take the Survey and Share Your Insights!


Thank You for an Incredible 2024!

From all of us at AWE, thank you for being part of this journey. Whether you attended our events, read our newsletters, or engaged with us online, you’ve helped make 2024 a remarkable year for XR.

We can’t wait to see what 2025 brings. We are looking forward to meeting at our events next year IRL in Long Beach, Singapore or Vienna, but also online or at the AWE Nite meetups.

Let’s keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with XR!

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