How can artificial intelligence and immersive technologies move from impressive concepts to practical tools for business, training and innovation? This was the central question behind the hands-on workshop “The World Becomes an Interface: AI, Augmented & Mixed Reality in Business”, delivered within the framework of the Metaverse Academy project during Innovent Forum at JOIST Innovation Space in Larissa.
The session brought together the project’s focus on AR, VR and XR skills with a very practical capacity-building approach: helping participants understand how emerging technologies can already be applied in real organisational contexts.
Organised in collaboration with Pytheia Competence Center and Sotiris Anagnostis, Director of PYTHEIA and Innovation & Change Manager in Healthcare, the workshop focused on the business value of AI and immersive technologies. Rather than presenting XR as a distant future or a purely technical field, the session explored how these technologies are already changing the way organisations design spaces, train teams, support decision-making and reimagine operations.
From awareness to practical understanding
Capacity building is not only about introducing people to new technologies. It is about helping them understand what those technologies can do, where they create value and how they can be applied in their own professional environment.
This is particularly important for AI, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality. Many organisations are aware of these technologies, but do not always know how to move from interest to adoption. The challenge is not only technological. It is also strategic, organisational and educational.
The workshop at Innovent Forum addressed this gap by focusing on real use cases and practical applications. Participants had the opportunity to explore how AI and XR can support everyday business and innovation needs, including architecture, spatial design, healthcare training, workforce development and decision-making.
This approach reflects one of the core ambitions of Metaverse Academy: to support future-oriented skills in immersive technologies and connect them with employability, entrepreneurship and real market needs.
XR and AI in architecture and spatial design
One of the key use cases discussed during the workshop was VR simulation in architecture and spatial design.
In this context, immersive technologies can help professionals move beyond static plans, drawings or 3D renders. Through VR, users can experience a space before it is built, evaluate design choices, understand scale and movement, and identify potential improvements earlier in the process.
For architects, designers, engineers and clients, this creates a more interactive and informed way of working. Decisions can be tested visually and experientially, reducing misunderstandings and improving communication between technical and non-technical stakeholders.
When combined with AI, this potential becomes even stronger. AI can support scenario generation, design optimisation, data interpretation and faster decision-making, while XR can make those insights more tangible and easier to understand.
XR and AI in healthcare training
Another important focus of the workshop was the use of XR and AI in healthcare training.
Healthcare is one of the sectors where immersive technologies can have a strong capacity-building impact. XR can create safe environments where professionals and trainees can practise procedures, explore complex scenarios and improve their response to critical situations without putting patients at risk.
AI can add another layer of value by supporting adaptive learning, personalised feedback, scenario variation and decision-support mechanisms. Together, AI and XR can help make training more experiential, data-informed and closer to real professional conditions.
This is especially relevant for healthcare innovation, where new tools must be practical, reliable and aligned with the needs of professionals. By including healthcare-related examples, the workshop helped participants understand that immersive technologies are not limited to entertainment or experimentation. They can become serious tools for training, quality improvement and organisational learning.
Rethinking operations, decision-making and workforce training
The third dimension of the workshop focused on how AI and XR can reshape business operations, decision-making and workforce training.
For companies and organisations, the value of immersive technologies often lies in their ability to make complex information easier to understand. XR can visualise processes, simulate tasks and create interactive training environments. AI can support analysis, prediction and automation. Together, they can help teams learn faster, collaborate better and make more informed decisions.
This is particularly important for sectors where employees need to understand complex workflows, practise technical tasks or respond to changing conditions. XR-based training can reduce the distance between theory and practice, while AI can support continuous improvement by analysing patterns, performance and learning needs.
In this sense, the workshop’s title — “The World Becomes an Interface” — captured a key shift. The interface is no longer only a screen. It can be a room, a workplace, a product, a simulation, a body of data or an augmented layer over the physical world.
Why this matters for incubators and innovation support organisations
The Innovent Forum workshop also has strong relevance for incubators, innovation hubs and business support organisations.
Incubators are often asked to support early-stage teams that work with emerging technologies. However, to support AI and XR ventures effectively, incubators need more than general entrepreneurship knowledge. They need to understand how these technologies create value, what kinds of use cases are realistic, what adoption barriers exist and how innovators can communicate their solutions to potential users, clients and investors.
Capacity-building activities like this workshop help incubators and innovation actors strengthen their own ability to guide technology-driven ideas. They can better support teams working on XR simulations, AI-enhanced services, digital training tools or sector-specific immersive applications.
For the Greek innovation ecosystem, this is especially valuable. By bringing the discussion into a space like JOIST Innovation Space in Larissa, the workshop connected European project results with a local innovation environment where entrepreneurs, researchers, companies and support organisations can interact.
The Greek case: building capacity through ecosystem collaboration
The Greek capacity-building case shows why local ecosystem events are important for European projects such as Metaverse Academy.
Innovent Forum provided a setting where the project’s themes could be translated into a practical discussion with local relevance. Instead of presenting AR, VR, MR and AI as abstract trends, the workshop placed them in concrete business and organisational contexts.
This matters because technology adoption happens through ecosystems. A course can build skills. A workshop can raise awareness. An incubator can support ideas. A company can test a use case. A competence center can connect expertise with sectoral needs. When these actors meet, capacity building becomes more than training — it becomes ecosystem development.
The collaboration with Pytheia Competence Center also added a sectoral and applied dimension, especially through the healthcare innovation perspective. This helped position AI and XR not only as digital tools, but as technologies that can support organisational change, professional training and practical problem-solving.
Metaverse Academy as a bridge between skills and application
Within this context, Metaverse Academy plays an important bridging role.
The project is not only about explaining immersive technologies. It is about helping learners, educators, entrepreneurs, incubators and organisations understand how AR, VR and XR skills can be developed and applied.
The workshop at Innovent Forum demonstrated this bridge in action. It connected the project’s broader skills agenda with real examples from business, design, healthcare and workforce development. It also showed how capacity building can support both individual learning and organisational readiness.
For learners, this means understanding which skills are becoming relevant.
For businesses, it means identifying where AI and XR can improve operations or training.
For incubators, it means becoming better prepared to support emerging technology ideas.
For the ecosystem, it means creating more opportunities for collaboration between education, innovation and the market.
From technology showcase to practical capacity building
One of the strongest elements of the workshop was its practical orientation. This was not a theoretical session about what AI and XR might do one day. It was a discussion about how these technologies can already be applied in work, organisations and innovation environments.
That distinction is important.
For emerging technologies to create impact, stakeholders need to move beyond awareness. They need examples, language, confidence and support mechanisms. They need to see how a VR simulation can help an architect, how XR can support healthcare training, how AI can improve decision-making, and how immersive tools can be integrated into workforce development.
This is the real value of capacity building: making innovation understandable, usable and relevant.
Looking ahead
The Greek capacity-building activity at Innovent Forum highlighted an essential message for the future of immersive technologies: AI and XR will not transform organisations simply because the tools exist. They will create value when people understand how to use them, when businesses can identify meaningful applications, and when innovation support organisations can guide ideas towards implementation.
Through the Metaverse Academy project, activities like this workshop help bring AR, VR, MR and AI closer to learners, companies, incubators and innovation ecosystems.
As the boundaries between physical and digital environments continue to evolve, the ability to understand and apply immersive technologies will become increasingly important. The world may be becoming an interface — but it is capacity building that will help people and organisations learn how to use it.