The cost, infrastructure and time required to turn an idea into a venue-scale experience have kept immersive creation out of reach for many. AI is beginning to change that equation.

Immersive art has traditionally demanded something most independent creators and production teams do not have: access to specialist production infrastructure.

A large-scale projection installation can require high-resolution rendering, spatial design, venue-specific formatting, technical teams and weeks or months of production. Dome and wraparound environments introduce another layer of complexity. At the highest end, purpose-built venues such as Sphere represent an entirely different production universe.

The result has been an unusual gap. An artist may have the idea, the visual language and even the source material, yet still lack a practical route from a laptop-sized creation to a room-sized experience.

A glimpse of what is changing can already be seen in ARTECHOUSE’s SUBMERGE program. Its recent edition enabled 12 artist groups to produce works at full 18K scale in weeks rather than months, using distributed GPU infrastructure, giving independent digital creators access to a production scale that would previously have demanded far greater resources.

That gap is beginning to narrow. AI-assisted production, distributed rendering and increasingly flexible spatial-video workflows are reducing not just production costs, but also the time and specialist infrastructure required to get immersive work into a venue.

The important shift isn't AI replacing the creator or the production team. It is smaller teams being able to attempt work that previously required much larger ones.

What are the blockers for immersive format creators?

Fragmentation multiplies the work. Domes, projection-mapped installations, 4DX-style rigs and LED-wall venues have different geometries, resolutions and playback requirements. Adapting one creative work across several venues can therefore require substantial reformatting, rendering and technical post production work.

The economics have been risky. Immersive content can demand significantly more production effort than conventional video, yet creators have fewer established channels through which to distribute and monetize it. For a creative director, that makes the investment difficult to justify: a strong immersive work may be technically impressive, but its potential audience is still scattered across different venues, formats and platforms.

There's a skills gap. Working in dome, wraparound and projection-mapped space demands spatial-orientation and interactive-staging skills that most technical teams, especially small, independent ones, haven't had the chance to build yet.

Where the demand for immersive content is growing

Five channels currently carry the bulk of immersive work, and they sit at very different points of maturity.

1. Theme parks / location-based entertainment — the most mature, best-resourced channel, with Universal and Disney continuing to pour capital into large-scale attractions. Now smaller location based immersive experiences are coming live across large cities.
2. Domes and sphere-scale venues — once associated with expensive permanent installations, domes are increasingly available at smaller scales. Portable and modular systems from companies such as Fulldome.pro and Go-Dome are lowering the infrastructure barrier for museums, schools, events and independent operators. As hardware becomes more accessible, the next challenge is creating enough high-quality content that can be affordably adapted and refreshed across these venues.
3. Premium large-format cinema — the channel with the clearest, most measurable audience response. IMAX closed 2025 with a record $1.28 billion in global box office, up 40% year-over-year, with premium-large-format tickets now representing over 16% of domestic admissions.
4. Touring installations / projection-mapped experiences — particularly relevant to independent and emerging work. Projection mapping is projected to account for more than half of the location-based entertainment market by technology in 2026, while rotating exhibition models such as ARTECHOUSE's SUBMERGE show how digital work can move from artists' screens into large-scale immersive environments.

The challenge for independent immersive creators is not only producing the work, but getting it onto screens. Immersive distribution remains fragmented across domes, projection venues, headsets and other spatial environments, each with different technical requirements and programming channels. Making one creative work adaptable across formats solves part of the problem; bringing those venue-ready versions together in discoverable content libraries can address another, giving venue operators a simpler way to find new work while giving creators a route to audiences beyond a single exhibition.

A New Path from Creation to Distribution

Postcard from Earth shows both the ambition and limitation of bespoke immersive production. Filmed across 26 countries using technology developed specifically for Sphere, it represents an extraordinary but difficult-to-replicate model. AI offers another route: reducing the cost of adaptation, not the cost of imagination, so one underlying work can increasingly be adapted for domes, VR, projection environments and installations.

Instead of producing independently for every destination, creators can increasingly start with a common source and adapt it for a dome, VR headset, projection environment, gallery installation or other immersive display. This is particularly important for smaller studios, educators, museums and training producers, where the economics depend on getting more use from the same underlying content.

Distribution is also beginning to open up. Specialist platforms and distributors such as FDDB, Reef Distribution, BuildVR and Hubblo Immersion provide different routes for immersive work to reach venues and audiences. BuildVR combines multi-format adaptation with a growing library of immersive content.

Together, these emerging routes point toward a simpler model: create once, adapt across formats, and reach more screens.

What this means for immersive creators

• Plan for a creative source that can travel. Where possible, design source material and production workflows with multiple immersive destinations in mind rather than treating every new venue as an entirely new production.
• Treat the skills gap as an opportunity, not just a barrier. Spatial and interactive staging expertise is scarce enough that independent creators who build it early have a real edge over larger, slower-moving institutions.
• Decide the adaptation/authorship line before showing the work, and say so in the wall text or press materials. Quiet AI use is what turns a defensible choice into a controversy.
• Look to venues built around rotation, not permanence — programs like Submerge exist specifically to lower the cost of entry for creators without a museum behind them.

Ultimately, AI and emerging distribution platforms could make the economics of immersive content work for far more creators and venues. Lower production and adaptation costs improve the potential ROI of each work, while better distribution gives quality content more opportunities to find the right screens and audiences. As demand for immersive entertainment grows, this combination could enable more creators to participate, more venues to refresh their experiences, and more ambitious immersive work to travel beyond a handful of flagship locations.

Prerna Singh is the founder and CEO of BuildVR.ai, an AI-powered immersive video platform helping creators and studios adapt existing video for VR, domes and other immersive displays. BuildVR also operates a growing library of immersive content connecting venue operators with ready-to-use experiences.