AWE 2026: Field Notes from Augmented World Expo

Augmented World Expo (AWE) is the world's largest gathering for augmented reality, virtual reality, and spatial computing. This year it brought the XR community to Long Beach, California — and I went to see where these technologies are heading, and what their growing convergence with artificial intelligence means for how we teach and learn.

I captured two short videos straight from the event — one in English and one in Spanish — with my first impressions from the floor. You can watch both below.

Why an AI educator goes to an AR conference

Spatial computing and AI are starting to reinforce each other. Immersive hardware is what places content in the world around us; AI is increasingly the layer that makes that content adaptive, responsive, and personal. For education, that combination is worth paying close attention to: it points toward learning experiences that can adjust to each student in real time, in three dimensions, rather than on a flat screen.

Events like AWE are useful precisely because they show the field as it actually is — the genuine breakthroughs alongside the hype — which is the only honest starting point for deciding what belongs in a classroom or a training program, and what does not yet.

Watch: my field notes from the floor

If spatial computing and AI are on your radar for your institution or team, these are the questions I keep coming back to: where does immersion genuinely deepen learning, and where is a simpler tool still the better choice? That is the conversation I most enjoy having with educators and leaders.