Ex-Meta VR Advocate On Current State & Future Of Technology

Background

I've always been excited about early tech – back in 2005, I was already following rumors of a "touch screen iPod" (what would eventually become the iPhone in 2007) and writing a blog about tech’s impact on culture. But my professional path wasn't linear. I started my career in IT at Dow, a major manufacturing company, in 2012. At the time, my dream was actually to work for a social media giant to "connect the world," but everything changed when Google unveiled Glass. I immediately knew that was the future I wanted to be part of – one where computers understood the world around us and enabled us to keep our heads up, not down at a slab of glass.

I was fortunate to be one of the first Glass owners in 2013. That experience put me on the trajectory I'm still on today. I actually founded a startup called DriveSafe, which focused on using wearable tech to detect drowsy or distracted driving – a project that was even featured in Wired. While most people saw Glass as just a camera, I saw it as a safety tool that could save lives.

At a Fortune 50 company, however, wearing a computer on your face was seen as "alien technology." There was strong resistance, but I persisted until the "digital transformation" wave hit. I eventually helped establish Dow's first Digital Transformation Office in Chicago, founded their first AR/VR team, and taught myself Unity to build prototypes for everything from factory safety to marketing at the 2016 Olympics. That led me to PTC, Spatial.io, and eventually Meta, advocating for the ecosystem I'd spent over a decade waiting for.

Lessons Learned

The biggest lesson from my time at Dow and PTC is that adoption is a battle of utility, not novelty. When I was deploying AR for shipbuilders in Maine or factory maintenance teams, I learned that if the tech doesn't solve a problem better than a clipboard or a tablet, it dies.

That experience grounded me. Even when I moved into the creative and gaming side later, I approached it with an engineer's mindset: "Does this actually work?" It also taught me that hardware constraints are real. I pivoted to building mobile AR prototypes in 2016 because HoloLens adoption wasn't realistic yet. You have to meet the user where they are, not where you want them to be.

Working at Meta

Joining Meta in April 2025 was the culmination of 13 years in the industry. After helping Spatial through three different pivots – including the massive organic success of Animal Company – I felt it was time for a new adventure. I wanted to get back to my core passion: building XR tech and supporting the developers who make it possible.

For me, Meta was the ultimate platform to do that. As a Developer Advocate, I wasn't just a spokesperson; I was a bridge. I got to represent the community on stages from Gamescom to Meta Connect, and create developer content that I truly believed in. It was a dream come true to advocate for the ecosystem that I had spent my entire career building toward.

The Current State of XR Technology

We are seeing a massive expansion right now, but it looks different than what many predicted five years ago. In 2026, the industry has realized that the path to XR glasses doesn't necessarily have to go through VR headsets first. Consumers have voted with their wallets: they want smart glasses with great utility now, even if they don’t have full mixed reality displays yet.

You look at the landscape today: Google and Samsung just launched the Galaxy XR, Snapchat is hitting the market with consumer glasses, and smart glasses were absolutely everywhere at CES this year. Even Meta is doubling down on the Ray-Ban form factor. Plus, the rumors that Apple is shifting resources to get proper glasses out sooner tells you everything you need to know. We are seeing a divergence where "heavy" VR serves the gamers and pros, but "light" smart glasses are becoming the everyday carry for everyone else. That is the definition of mainstream acceptance.

Common Misconceptions

I see the skepticism falling into two distinct camps right now. On one hand, you have people who think an experience is only "valid" if it’s hyper-realistic, 4K fidelity. On the other hand, you have people dismissing the entire medium because they see so many titles geared toward younger audiences. Both sides are missing the reality.

The truth is that VR experiences can be "low poly" and still be incredibly successful. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the true "VR Natives." They are spending an incredible amount of time and money in XR, not because of the graphics, but because of the social connection. Just as Millennials expected social media to be part of their daily lives, this next generation expects immersive media to be their default way of hanging out. To dismiss "low poly" or "kid-focused" apps is to dismiss the most financially successful sector of the entire industry right now.

Unique Opportunities Provided by XR

The unique opportunity is in "organic immersion" – the ability to turn a user into a participant. We saw this clearly with Animal Company. We spent $0 on marketing. Zero. Yet, we garnered over 1 billion views on TikTok. How? Because the VR gameplay was inherently shareable and hilarious.

We built a program called "The Drip Department" to support creators, and the community grew our Discord to over 400,000 members. Mobile can’t do that the same way because you are watching a screen. In XR, you are in the screen, and that generates a level of emotional connection and "fear of missing out" (FOMO) that drives massive organic growth.

Competition in Today's Market

It’s definitely not winner-take-all. My experience with the "Spatial Creator Toolkit" showed me that creators want to build once and publish everywhere. We are heading toward a multi-device future, especially with new players entering the wearables space almost weekly.

I see the market splitting into distinct use cases. You’ll have high-fidelity headsets for immersive gaming and heavy entertainment, lighter headsets for productivity and spatial workspaces, and then ultra-light smart glasses for those "on-the-go" check-ins and notifications. Each ecosystem serves a different "mode" of life. The winners won't be the ones trying to make one device do everything; they’ll be the ones who allow users to drift seamlessly between these different form factors.

Business Advice 

My advice: community is your currency. With Animal Company, we didn't just launch a game. We built a community of creators. We viewed the game not just as a product, but as a virtual playground, a movie set, and a hangout space.

The key to our success was our release cadence. We did weekly releases, which kept players constantly hyped and gave us an invaluable, real-time feedback loop. If you're a developer, don't build in a vacuum. Look for the "velocity" signal. Are people creating content about your prototype? Are they asking for features in your Discord? If the answer is yes, commit resources to fueling that fire.

That philosophy is something I now bring directly to the teams I advise. Whether it's a studio figuring out their first VR launch, or a platform trying to build creator momentum, the playbook we developed at Animal Company and Spatial is repeatable. If your team is navigating any of this, I'm actively working with companies in this space and you can reach me through my website or LinkedIn.

What's Next for Spatial Computing

By 2031, "XR" and "AI" will effectively be one and the same. We're moving toward a world where AI Agents and Model Context Protocols are the engine, and XR is the interface.

We're already seeing the rise of World Models today, and it's happening at an exponential rate. AI is rapidly moving beyond just generating text or code to developing a deep, physical understanding of the environment around you. I got to see this firsthand a few weeks ago, when I helped organize, emcee, and judge "Worlds in Action" in San Francisco, a hackathon specifically focused on world models and spatial AI, with participants from World Labs, ByteDance, Google, Niantic, and Meta. Watching teams push the boundaries of how AI understands physical space in real time made it very clear that this convergence isn't theoretical anymore.

Jake Steinerman, VR Developer Advocate

Interview conducted by the 80 Level Editorial Team

Make sure to subscribe to our Newsletter, join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

Are you a fan of what we do here at 80 Level? Then make sure to set us as a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our content in your feed.