Immersive digital experiences have traditionally been limited by cost, hardware, and technical complexity. What shifts are finally making large-scale accessibility and adoption possible today?
Immersive digital experiences have existed for years, but for the longest time they were trapped behind expensive hardware, heavy software, and highly specialized talent. Every major leap in computing has followed the same pattern: technology starts bulky, expensive, and inaccessible, then gradually becomes smaller, faster, and deeply personal. Computers moved from giant machines to desktops. Desktops became laptops. Laptops became smartphones. And now, digital experiences are moving closer to human interaction itself.

Vinay Agastya, Founder & CEO, Ctruh Technologies
The smartphone revolution taught the world an important lesson: hardware alone means nothing without accessible experiences built on top of it. A phone without apps is just a black screen. In the same way, immersive technology could never scale when it depended on complex pipelines, app downloads, and enterprise-level budgets.
What has changed today is that the infrastructure has finally matured. Browser-native 3D, AI-driven creation pipelines, cloud computing, and faster internet speeds have collectively removed the barriers that once made immersive experiences difficult to scale. Experiences no longer need heavy installations or expensive XR setups to work. They can now run instantly through the browser, across devices, at global scale.
That changes everything. Immersive technology is no longer reserved for Fortune 500 companies with massive budgets. It is becoming accessible to startups, creators, educators, retailers, and businesses of every size. And once technology becomes affordable, scalable, and frictionless, adoption stops being an experiment and starts becoming inevitable.
Browser-native 3D is changing the way users interact with XR experiences by removing app dependencies. How significant is this shift for businesses trying to scale immersive engagement globally?
Browser-native 3D is one of the biggest shifts the internet has seen since mobile commerce. The reason is simple: people naturally explore before they engage. Human behavior has always been immersive; the internet just wasn’t capable enough to support it at scale until now.
For the last two decades, most digital commerce has remained surprisingly flat. Users scroll through static images, click product grids, zoom into photos, and make buying decisions with limited interaction. Despite all technological progress, the core shopping experience has barely evolved since the early e-commerce boom.
Browser-native XR changes that completely because it removes the single biggest friction point: dependency. The moment users are asked to download an app, install software, or use specialized hardware, drop-offs begin. But when immersive experiences work instantly inside the browser, discovery becomes seamless, natural, and global.
This is not just about technology. It is about changing the language of the internet from viewing to experiencing.
Businesses today are no longer competing only on products or pricing; they are competing on engagement, retention, and memorability. Immersive experiences dramatically increase all three because they create participation instead of passive consumption. And when combined with AI, the ability to create and deploy these experiences becomes exponentially faster.
The internet was never meant to stay two-dimensional forever. Browser-native immersive infrastructure is simply unlocking what the web was always evolving toward.
With AI now generating production-ready 3D assets from text, images, and video, how is the creative and operational process evolving compared to traditional 3D production pipelines?
Traditional 3D production pipelines were incredibly fragmented. A single asset could take weeks or months involving designers, modelers, animators, rendering teams, optimization experts, and deployment specialists. The process was expensive, time-consuming, and operationally exhausting, which is why immersive experiences remained inaccessible for most businesses.
AI has fundamentally changed that equation.
Today, production-ready 3D assets can be generated from text prompts, images, videos, or references in minutes instead of months. What once required large studios and highly technical workflows can now happen through intelligent automation layered with creative control.
But the real transformation is not just speed. It is democratization.
AI is shifting 3D creation from being skill-restricted to idea-driven. The gap between imagination and execution is shrinking rapidly. Small brands, independent creators, and mid-sized businesses can now build experiences that previously only global enterprises could afford.
At Ctruh, we see AI not as a replacement for creativity, but as a multiplier of human imagination. The role of technology is no longer to complicate creation; it is to remove friction from it. And that is why we are witnessing one of the biggest creative shifts of this decade, where immersive content creation becomes faster, smarter, more scalable, and commercially viable for everyday business use.
Across retail and e-commerce, immersive commerce is gaining traction rapidly. What behavioural or business changes are driving enterprises to invest more seriously in XR-led customer experiences?
Retail and e-commerce are naturally leading the immersive commerce wave because these industries operate directly on customer experience. Historically, brands experimented with XR and 3D, but the economics rarely made sense. High production costs, fragmented technology stacks, slow deployment cycles, and low scalability often resulted in poor ROI. Businesses were spending heavily just to run pilot experiments.
That equation has now changed completely.
AI-powered workflows and browser-native infrastructure have drastically reduced the cost and complexity of deploying immersive experiences. What used to require months of development and
large budgets can now be created, optimized, and launched in minutes. This makes immersive commerce commercially practical instead of just visually impressive.
At the same time, consumer behavior is evolving rapidly. Customers no longer want to just view products; they want to interact with them. They expect realism, personalization, and confidence before making decisions online. Immersive commerce bridges the gap between physical and digital discovery in a way traditional interfaces never could.
And this shift extends far beyond retail.
In real estate, immersive walkthroughs are redefining property discovery. In automotive, customers can configure and experience vehicles digitally before entering a showroom. In healthcare, immersive simulations are improving training and patient engagement. In hospitality and tourism, destinations can now be experienced before travel decisions are made. In learning and development, immersive environments are making education significantly more interactive and effective.
This is why enterprises are taking XR seriously now, because immersive experiences are no longer futuristic experiments. They are becoming measurable business infrastructure.
With expansion underway across markets like the US and UAE alongside fresh funding for R&D, what does the next phase of the spatial web ecosystem realistically look like over the next few years?
What we are witnessing right now is not the peak of the spatial web, it is the starting point.
India is still in the early adoption phase, but markets like the US and UAE are already moving aggressively toward immersive digital ecosystems. Governments, enterprises, retailers, and technology leaders in these regions understand that the next evolution of the internet will not be built around static interfaces. It will be built around interactive, intelligent, and spatial experiences.
Over the next few years, the internet will gradually shift from pages and apps toward environments and experiences. The distinction between physical and digital interaction will continue to blur. AI, spatial computing, browser-native infrastructure, and real-time 3D will converge to create a much more experiential internet than the one we know today.
The biggest misconception people make is thinking this is only about AR or VR headsets. It is much larger than that. This is about redefining how humans interact with information, products, businesses, and each other.
The companies building the foundational infrastructure today will shape how the next generation experiences the internet tomorrow. That is the opportunity in front of us.
And honestly, we are still incredibly early. The spatial web is not a feature upgrade to the internet. It is the next chapter of the internet itself.
Enjoyed this interview? Now imagine yours. Write to:
jeevika@thefoundermedia.in
