A week of inspiration and connection at Web Summit, one of the world’s largest tech conferences. I attended with a small team from Niantic to share the vision for Niantic Spatial, a new spin-out following Scopely’s acquisition of Niantic Labs.
It was my first time in Lisbon, and I fell for it fast. The city felt strangely familiar — little flashes of home tucked into new streets and neighborhoods I’d never seen before. Between late nights exploring and long days in the conference halls, I kept feeling that same spark: the reminder that creativity and technology connect us everywhere.
Our booth was designed to introduce developers, creators, and brands to Niantic Spatial: a platform at the intersection of real-world AR, gaming, and 3D creation. I spent much of the week walking people through the capabilities of 8th Wall, creating simple face effects live in the booth and talking to developers about what’s possible when the web becomes a canvas for spatial computing.
Alongside my colleague Ian Curtis, I helped transform our booth into something more — a playable demo that extended beyond the show floor. Together we built a virtual clone of the booth and turned it into a first-person shooter game accessible across devices:
- Mobile AR: Visitors could explore the physical booth in AR and fire digital projectiles that realistically bounced off the booth itself using VPS anchoring.
- VR / Desktop: A Gaussian splat of the booth enabled full 3D navigation and physics-based interactions.
Conferences like Web Summit can feel overwhelming, but this one left me energized. Lisbon itself was a revelation — vibrant, international, and deeply creative — and the conference showed just how much momentum there is around immersive storytelling, gaming, and spatial computing.
Walking away, I felt proud to have represented Niantic and excited to keep shaping the future of how we experience the world, both physical and digital. I can’t wait to return.