Redefining immersive experiences through XR and AI

By Debra Herrick

PABLO COLAPINTO, PH.D. ’15 has spent his career at the forefront of technology, merging extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to shape how we experience sports, entertainment and beyond. Now, as the founder of his own spatial design studio, Diagonal Numbers, he’s reimagining the future.

“I work with product managers at tech companies, sports leagues, brands and entertainment studios to prototype the next generation of user, consumer and fan experiences,” Colapinto says. “On the ground, this entails finding the practical value of spatial computing and AI.” 

In the sports world, Colapinto collaborates with professional leagues like the MLB and NBA, leveraging data to create augmented reality features that bring fans closer to the game. In entertainment, he aims to blend the physical and virtual, creating “meaningful encounters” like his large-scale augmented reality project with virtual band Gorillaz in Times Square.

Colapinto’s academic journey began at Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in visual and environmental studies. He then pursued a doctorate in media arts and technology at UCSB, diving into transdisciplinary research that merges art and tech. This path led him to groundbreaking work with top companies like Meta, Google, Disney and Niantic. Along the way, his innovative contributions have earned him accolades including an Emmy nomination, a Webby, a Tribeca X Award and a Cannes Lions Grand Prix. He’s worked as a VFX supervisor for the Metropolitan Opera and a futurist for Scott Free Productions; he also served as a graphics engineer at Oblong Industries and head of experience design at Nexus Studios. 

“The teams I lead have done a ton of work with Meta to think through the user experience in the lead-up to their Orion glasses,” he says. “Also with Meta, at Nexus, we built Headspace XR, a ‘playground for the mind’ which uses all these interface tools to improve mental health.”

Looking ahead, Colapinto sees XR and AI as “instruments of reason” that need virtuosos to unlock their full potential. “The call is out for designers, artists, engineers and scientists to craft new ways of thinking,” he says. For him, the space between technology and human connection is ripe for innovation, and he’s eager to help shape the future.

“At one point I called all these value-adds different types of ‘spatial storytelling’ and that is sort of semantically correct,” he explains, “but it undersells the connective tissue at play. When we say something is ‘in space,’ we imply that it could be a shared experience — shared with the milieu and also others who might also be seeing the same thing. It is this public/community aspect of spatial practice that has my attention now.” 

Pablo Colapinto Ph.D. '15