ARHT Media had (and still has) amazing technology – and a patent on it too. But, amazing tech doesn’t always make for a successful business model. In fact, had their holographic projection technology debuted two or three years from now, it would likely be more successful than it has been thus far.
The real launch of AHRT’s tech literally came during the pandemic in 2020; even though they’d been talking about the tech for half-a-dozen years. The concept, back in 2014, when they launched, was that big-time speakers can present to an audience anywhere without having to travel – in real-life proportions. But, the truth is, people want to see celebrity-types in person. Then, when the pandemic hit, they promoted the tech as a way that C-Suite execs could present to an audience anywhere without leaving their offices – especially since travel during the pandemic became a hassle.
The pandemic ended.
Then AHRT Media promoted its hologram-like boxes, called HoloPods, for applications like virtual concierges, as retail engagement boosts, as amplified fan experiences, as virtual healthcare support and as life-sized virtual educators. But, it was price prohibitive.
I even used the technology to present live from Dallas, TX, to an audience all around the world, once. The live audience said my holographic image was too dim to be comfortable and the remote audience liked my Zoom and LAVNCH presentations better.
Oh well.
They even announced adoption by WeWork to put them in most of its co-working spaces in 2021. A company insider told me they were barely used.
AHRT Media is a publicly traded company on the TSX (Canadian stock exchange) and its stock closed at 0.015 cents a share on Monday September 30th; down from a 1-year high of 0.08 and a 5-year high of 0.48 cents per share in July of 2020. When the company debuted in 2014, its stock rose to as high as $5.25 in November 2014 but, like I said, great tech doesn’t always make for a good idea.
Owen Philips of ARHT Media competitor Proto Hologram, reached out to me on Friday with the news that ARHT Media declared bankruptcy saying, “ [I] would feel bad if they hadn’t been trying to undermine us with our own developed tech instead of improving their own — clearly knocking off someone’s engineering as your core product rather than putting any thing into developing and improving or building a real platform for it all is a dead end.”
He may have been right. But in my experience, any new innovative tech needs a competitor to draw attention that the tech has been validated. Now, with Proto being the only holographic game in town, I wonder if this will help or hurt them – consumers are often leery of a company or technology with no alternative. And, I do feel bad for the team at ARHT Media who worked on this and who believed in it – they were some cool people – like the team at Proto, innovative.
Courtesy of Lucasfilm
I love this tech and I love how it advances the concept of the virtual presenter being nearly as perfect as being somewhere in-person. And, maybe it’s because of that scene from Star Wars – A New Hope where Princess Leia is sending a message to Obi-Wan Kenobi via holographic projection – that movie carved a path for me into tech in the first place.
But, I am sure I am not the only person who believes that this tech is coming, sooner rather than later, to businesses and schools globally. But, I fear the later might be too far, far away.
