XR Kaigi Expo Photo Report That Makes You Feel Like You Went: AI, Education, and Training Edition
XR Kaigi is one of Japan's largest XR events, held in Takeshiba from December 1 to 3. As with last year, the venue was Tokyo Portcity Takeshiba, and it felt like coming back to this place again at this time of year.
In this report, I will focus on the XR Kaigi expo area and introduce the booths that caught my attention by category in a photo report style.
This time I will mainly cover AI, education, training, and practice-related exhibits. This is only my personal impression, but the booth area felt more energetic than last year, with lively exchanges happening throughout. At a glance, the XR industry can look less energetic than the AI boom, but there were also topics such as new solutions and new devices.
AI
The AI boom is affecting IT as a whole, and that wave is naturally reaching XR (VR / AR / MR) as well. Across the many booths at the venue, there were easy-to-understand examples of AI being used for conversational responses. There also seemed to be countless exhibits where AI analysis was being performed behind the scenes.
The clearest example of conversational AI was Threedive AI's "Autopilot Customer Service AI."
Text-based chatbot conversations have evolved significantly since ChatGPT, but the presence created by having a character right in front of you is substantial. I do not think people encounter this kind of AI system very often yet, but just as changing an AI model version can greatly change how approachable it feels, adding a realistic character likely changes the impression again.
I also felt that solutions such as Up-Agent, which let users access public or internal data through dialogue with AI, are a good fit for XR.
There were also exhibits related to AI glasses, which can be considered one of the trends around XR in 2025. My impression was that a wide variety of exhibits were on display, ranging from 3D-based systems to smart-glasses-based systems.
Lenovo's booth introduced something called AI Role Play, with a demo for customer service. At some point, consumer electronics retailers may also have AI consultation spaces like this.
Education
In the category of industrial XR, I got the impression that many exhibits are currently emphasizing uses such as education and training. For example, how to handle training in remote locations seems to have become a major issue after COVID.
With the "XR Disaster Experience App Set" provided by WARK, users can reproduce and experience various disasters on tablets and AR glasses.
I also tried the fire experience, and I felt that adding effects to the screen might make evacuation drills feel more realistic. The approach of showing what would happen if a disaster occurred in a familiar place feels unique to AR. Local governments run various evacuation drills, including smoke experiences, but those can require fairly large-scale preparation. If solutions like this become more accessible, the barrier to these experiences may become lower.
At the alpha V-Reality booth, there was an exhibit of a VR practical training support system that can be used for employee training. I experienced training set at Tokyo Tower, and the ability to proceed at one's own pace also seemed appealing.
From the education perspective, there were also exhibits such as Meta for Education, which supports the introduction of XR devices into school education. Because the level of immersion is incomparable to tablets and similar devices, I am looking forward to seeing how this develops.
In terms of education for content creators, there was also an exhibit from an upper secondary program with a curriculum for developing people who will be active in the metaverse, such as VTubers. Personally, I was impressed by what an incredible era this has become.
There were many education and training solutions last year as well, but this year I felt that more of them had a stronger AI flavor or were designed around more concrete use cases.