• by Colin Kirkland , December 6, 2024

In an effort to drive widespread adoption around its virtual-reality products, Meta has partnered with renowned filmmaker James Cameron's visual effects company Lightstorm Vision, aiming to scale the creation of the company's 3D entertainment experiences across live sports, concerts, feature films, and TV series.

In a recent statement, Cameron said Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CTO and head of its mixed-reality division Reality Labs, showed him some of Meta's latest virtual reality (VR) tech, which “amazed” him.

“I’m convinced we're at a true, historic inflection point,” said the creator behind blockbuster hits including “Titanic,” “Terminator,” and “Avatar,” adding that he wants Meta to provide Lightstorm Vision with the tools to help develop and distribute “new and mind-blowing forms of media.”

Meta said that beyond co-producing Lightstorm Vision's original content, it plans to use its product line of Quest headsets to improve “content creators' ability to make high-quality stereoscopic content through the use of advanced tooling, including employing AI.”

The tech giant believes that as a member of Stability AI's board of directors, Cameron is connected to the ongoing development of creative automation in a way that will allow him to contribute to a “thoughtful and responsible use of AI in this space.”

Upon joining Stability AI -- which aims to provide creators a full stack AI pipeline to bring their ideas to life -- Cameron said “the intersection of generative AI and CGI image creation is the next wave” of cutting edge technology and will “unlock new ways for artists to tell stories in ways we could have never imagined.”

Lightstorm Vision's multi-year partnership with Meta aims to facilitate this belief by making 3D production tools more accessible to a wide variety of creators, and top-tier 3D content available to consumers both in their homes and on the go.

Even prior to changing its name from Facebook to Meta in 2021, the social-media company has struggled to prove the value of its Reality Labs division due to limited adoption of its VR releases, its Horizon Worlds metaverse platform, and the billions of dollars of quarterly losses.

Despite reporting record revenue growth and solid advertising metrics in the last quarter, Meta reported that it expects its operating losses for Reality Labs to “increase meaningfully year-over-year.”

Since rebounding its business through the reinvention of its ads platform through the integration of AI, Meta has tried to come up with promising use cases for its VR tech -- for example, live VR concerts, and, more recently, “Metaversities.”

Joining forces with a celebrated and respected director and technology novice like Cameron, the company may be able to provide consumers with a worthwhile reason to buy its VR tech and lower the exponential costs of its Reality Labs efforts.