Niantic's Vision for the AR Future: Building a Smarter World Map

Niantic remains strongly committed to the belief that the future of computing lies in augmented reality technology.

The gaming studio responsible for Pokémon GO shares this vision with major companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Snap; however, the stakes are particularly significant for Niantic as it strives to establish a leading position in core AR infrastructure and attract external developers, potentially surpassing the efforts of much larger organizations.

Niantic’s ongoing development is financially supported by the continued success of Pokémon GO, which SensorTower estimates is experiencing its most profitable year to date in 2020. According to the firm’s report, the game has generated over $1 billion in revenue since the beginning of the year, representing a substantial increase compared to 2019—a result that may be unexpected considering the impact of the current pandemic. These revenues have enabled Niantic to actively acquire companies within the AR infrastructure sector, including Escher Reality, Matrix Mill, and, most recently, 6D.ai.

This latest acquisition specifically indicates the company’s future direction for its augmented reality platform. 6D.ai was developing cloud-based AR mapping software, with early clients like Airbnb. Their technology enabled rapid 3D capture of environments simply by using a smartphone. Following the acquisition, Niantic has been integrating this technology into its developer platform and enhancing it with its own advancements in semantic understanding, aiming to not only quickly map the geometry of a space but also to recognize the context and meaning of the objects within that 3D model.

“Our ultimate goal is to create truly immersive AR experiences where everything works in harmony,” explained Joel Hesch, Niantic’s senior director of Engineering, in an interview with TechCrunch. “This includes precise location data for accurate content placement and shared experiences, geometric information for realistic interactions like occlusion and physics, and semantic understanding to allow virtual characters to interact intelligently with the real world.”

Alongside technological development, Niantic is actively encouraging user participation. The company is prompting Pokémon GO players to record videos of landmarks and locations, with this visual data being used to refine models and improve experiences for future users. As more users gain access to advanced technologies like the lidar sensor in the iPhone 12 Pro, Niantic is expected to receive access to higher-quality data.

The overarching objective of this data collection is to construct a continuously updated 3D map of the world. Their latest technology allows them to analyze these scans and differentiate between various elements, such as buildings, water, and the sky. The key question remains whether this data will prove more valuable than broader geographic insights offered by tools like the Google Maps API.

Although Niantic has been discussing its Real World Platform since 2018, its official expansion has been gradual, as initial excitement surrounding phone-based AR—sparked by Apple’s introduction of ARKit in 2017—has somewhat diminished. “We have primarily focused on our own games and applications, but we are very enthusiastic about making the platform accessible to a wider range of users,” Hesch stated.

For Niantic and other companies optimistic about the future of AR, their current strategy appears to be focused on continuous development, with the hope that their research and development efforts will provide a significant advantage when the technology gains wider consumer adoption.