You don’t have to look any further than the latest tech products to understand that depth-sensing and spatial audio technologies will reshape the future of interaction that extends beyond a screen. We’ll see a significant shift in how users interact with data, which will require organizations to build new teams dedicated to the exploration of news within a digitally mapped world.

This isn’t a 2025-and-beyond journalism prediction — it’s here now.

The introduction of 5G and robust LiDAR technologies into mobile devices will demand that our industry do more, and our users will expect it. Casual users will quickly become tech-savvy ones who seek the content experiences that leverage, not just one, but all technologies best. We will begin to explore a spatial computing future that seamlessly connects our content experiences across many devices, including immersive technology platforms.

Organizations across the media industry will create teams dedicated to the exploration of immersive storytelling powered by the convergence of technologies like 5G, AI, and LiDAR. These teams will be a cross-section of several disciplines from across an organization and include talent with non-journalism backgrounds. These small dedicated teams will move innovation beyond a talking point into actionable experiments that will guide the industry.

Expect to see the evolution of audio beyond the podcast, interactive volumetric video experiences, galleries of 3D content captured by LiDAR, and immersive data visualizations. The future of interactive storytelling is about to get even more complicated. Are you ready?