Display Technology

Looking Glass CEO Shawne Frayne comments on Accenture investment

Provided by Looking Glass.

February 9, 2023

Shawn Frayne. Provided by Looking Glass.

Digital Signage Today recently reported on the investment by Accenture in hologram display and communication firm Looking Glass Factory. We reached out to CEO Shawn Frayne via email to get insights into the investment.

Q: How does this investment change the game for Looking Glass and its efforts, and does it accelerate any of the R & D or product development in the pipeline?

A:Accenture's deep reach into a number of industries and relationships will continue to accelerate our growth and will help us identify critical product features in the future. Insights from this relationship will help drive longer term R & D and new product development which is in lockstep with future customer needs.

Q: What does it say about hologram tech in general that a firm of Accenture's size is willing to invest now, to say nothing of Accenture's $1 trillion market prediction for metaverse-related industry?

A: Accenture has its finger on the pulse of future use cases and the needs of brands and consumers across the globe. Accenture's investment, at this time, confirms the readiness of our technology and reinforces the need for glasses-free options to access new applications that will shape the future of how we work, play and communicate, including those that are created as the metaverse develops.

Q: Should the business world, consumers and investors be paying more attention to (and investing more money in) the hologram revolution? Why is it still viewed by so many folks as a "niche" or "some-day" development rather than an "it's happening right now" sort of thing?

A: Yes!

Until just recently, a lot of companies were invested heavily in a VR and AR-only vision of the future. And while those approaches are powerful, they are usually just for a single person, require headgear and therefore have limited application space.

Meanwhile, over the last couple of years, we've shown that holographic content can be made and shared with a click of a button, and we've demonstrated, sold and shipped group-viewable holographic displays at scale. This has led to real applications being rolled out in retail environments, kiosks, museums and conference rooms around the world. And as more people see this technology at work in person with their own eyes, and see that it is something real that is here today, I think we're going to quickly find that the hologram revolution we've been waiting for, for many decades, is finally here.