Michael Hoffman (IQXR) on Solving the Hard Problems for Enterprises

The Guest

Michael Hoffman, or “Hoff” as most know him, is the co-founder and CEO at IQXR, a company solving the hardest problems facing global-scale, enterprise XR deployments, and doing so with an open source approach.

Previously Michael spent nearly a decade working with the Microsoft Hololens team. He was a Principal Engineering Lead at Microsoft for a couple of years, left to be the founding partner of Object theTheory, where he and his team worked with enterprises to leverage AR and VR technologies, often in combination with IoT and AI/Machine Learning. And then he went back to Microsoft for a couple of years to lead the development of the Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK) project.

Earlier in his career, Michael worked in software engineering roles at Google, Nike, and several startups.

Michael Hoffman

LinkedIn | X
IQXR

The Conversation

In this conversation, Hoff describes how 3D visualization, with AR and VR technologies, changes our comprehension of digital information, contributes to the value of having your hands free to interact with the world, and enables better efficiency and better insights.

Within the enterprise setting, Hoff notes it’s relatively easy to get to a pilot and prove value, but it’s really difficult to deliver that value at scale.

We go on to talk about making AR/VR solutions viable within an enterprise setting at scale, including challenges around visual and audio haptics, working both online and offline, and other key bits of plumbing, as well as the misconceptions that many enterprises have about the technology.

We also discuss:

  • the rationale and corporate strategy for building open source solutions,

  • the role of AI in accelerating software and content development,

  • the art of the AI prompt, and

  • how Apple Vision Pro accelerates the market.

Hoff wraps up by discussing neurodivergence and his own growing awareness and acceptance of the challenges and benefits of neurodivergence for both his children and himself.

Jason McDowallsdk, enterprise, AR smartglasses, VR, video passthrough, AI