Siri on Vision Pro is Getting Eye-tracked Activation and Visual Awareness Alongside New AI Features

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Apple spent a major portion of its WWDC 2026 keynote this week talking about new AI features that are part of an enhanced version of Siri. While most of the features will be accessible across devices, Siri on visionOS 27 has some unique touches that take advantage of Vision Pro.

The News

An overhauled version of Siri—which Apple is now calling “Siri AI”—is headed to Apple’s version 27 operating systems. The company detailed a wide range of capabilities, both new and improved, which make Siri AI more useful and more capable than previous versions.

“Siri AI is an entirely new version of Siri deeply integrated into iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro,” the company announced this week. “It can draw on personal context understanding to search across messages, emails, photos, and more, and get things done across apps with even more systemwide app actions. Additionally, Siri AI can answer questions related to the content on a user’s screen or go out to the web to get up-to-date information using broad world knowledge and generate a helpful answer. A dedicated Siri app allows users to revisit a past conversation or kick off a new one—all in one place—and uses iCloud to privately sync conversational history across a user’s products.”

Beyond the new capabilities that will work across most of Apple’s modern devices, Siri AI is getting some unique attention on Vision Pro. In VisionOS 27, the Siri ‘orb’ becomes a placeable widget that can sit in the room with you. And when you want to talk to it, simply look at the orb and start talking. It’s a seamless way to activate Siri using Vision Pro’s eye-tracking, without needing to tap anything or say a wake word.

Courtesy Apple

Siri is also getting ‘see what you see’ capabilities on Vision Pro. If the user asks the system to look at something, Siri has visual context of the user’s view of both the digital and real world. So you can ask about something you see on a webpage floating in front of you just as easily as you can ask about a piece of artwork on your wall.

Courtesy Apple

This is a much more natural way to use visual intelligence capabilities that have been part of earlier versions of Apple Intelligence but were not exposed in particularly obvious ways.

The new Siri app, which functions more like a traditional AI chatbot, is getting a native visionOS version.

Courtesy Apple

Apple says Siri AI is compatible with both the original Vision Pro (M2) and latest Vision Pro (M5). It’s available as a developer preview within visionOS 27 which is available now. Apple plans to roll out Siri AI features as a “beta” to the public later this year.

My Take

The inclusion of high-accuracy eye-tracking on Vision Pro continues to pay dividends to Apple. Turning Siri on Vision Pro into a persistent widget that’s activated with eye-tracking is the kind of subtle but clever idea that could very well set the standard for interacting with voice assistants on immersive devices going forward. Using eye-tracking to add context about the user’s question is also a smart way to leverage the feature.

Siri’s newfound ability to see the user’s digital and real world brings it much closer in line with Gemini’s visual capabilities on Android XR, which I’ve previously pointed to as a standout advantage over the AI capabilities of visionOS and Meta’s Horizon OS.

It’s unclear at this time if Siri on Vision Pro will be fed a still image of the world around the user at the time of the query, or if it will get a live view of the world around the user (as we see with Gemini on Android XR). The difference between a static or live view could lead to a significant gap in the usefulness of Siri AI’s ‘vision’ on Vision Pro compared to Gemini. On Android XR, Gemini can continuously see what’s around the user, enabling ongoing conversations with Gemini that evolve as new things happen. We’ll have to wait to see if Siri on Vision Pro can do the same.

We also don’t know if Siri will be able to ‘see’ during every query or if only specific queries will cause the headset to consider the world around the user. For Apple’s part, the company says it continues to emphasize privacy in its AI features, and says that any data that leaves the headset is processed in an encrypted way that’s not accessible to Apple or third parties.

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Meta Plans New Best Buy Pop-ups to Unify Demos of AI Glasses and VR Headsets

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Meta announced that it is rolling out updated kiosks inside of Best Buy, the biggest electronics retailer in the US. The new 900 square-foot “store in a store” offers a place for customers to demo Meta’s AI glasses and VR headsets.

The News

Meta has a long-running relationship with Best Buy and is no stranger to placing in-store kiosks with trained staff in stores to give customers the opportunity to go hands-on with its hardware. However, the company’s most recent kiosks have focused primarily on its AI glasses, creating an apparent divide between older, separately placed kiosks focused on Quest headsets.

Now the company says it’s rolling out a more unified experience, called “Meta Lab @ Best Buy,” an expanded kiosk that includes AI glasses and VR headsets in the same space, both of which are available for a hands-on experience.

Courtesy Best Buy

The company says the Meta Lab spaces are “designed for hands-on discovery, where people can explore Meta’s expansive lineup of AI glasses and VR headsets through interactive demos, smart mirrors, personalized fittings and more—all with support from dedicated Meta Sales Specialists.”

Meta plans to roll out 50 such spaces in Best Buy locations across the US and Canada, and notes that the following locations will be the first to open this Summer:

• San Carlos, CA
• Roseville, MN
• Woodland Park, NJ
• Greenville, SC
• Columbus, OH

The new Meta Lab @ Best Buy spaces appear to be a natural outgrowth of the company’s Meta Lab pop-up locations that rolled out in late 2025 to give the company a temporary boost to its retail presence in support of the Ray-Ban Display launch. These spaces also included Quest headsets and demos. Some of the Meta Lab pop-up locations have become permanent retail locations.

My Take

The move comes after Meta’s aggressive shift in focus away from its VR business and toward its AI glasses business, which has left many unsure of Meta’s long-term commitment to VR.

Meta launched Ray-Ban Display—its first AI glasses with a display—in late 2025. At the time the company launched new Best Buy kiosks which were exclusively focused on its AI glasses, and didn’t even include Meta’s VR headsets for sale. Meta was seemingly rushing these kiosks out the door because the company opted not to sell Ray-Ban Display to anyone without an in-person fitting. The need to deploy the kiosks in time for the launch of Ray-Ban Display is probably why we didn’t see the initial kiosks include Quest headsets at the outset. And, indeed, this is likely because of the rather abrupt shift in Meta’s focus toward its AI glasses.

With the new Meta Lab @ Best Buy spaces, the company’s retail strategy is catching up to its product strategy. While we probably can’t infer too much about what this means for Meta’s long-term commitment to VR, it at least tells us that the company wants to make sure all of its hardware can be seen together in one retail space.

In any case, seeing more spaces that offer hands-on demos of VR headsets is a good thing. The VR experience remains almost impossible to describe to someone who has never used a modern headset; actually trying on a VR headset is a reliably mind-blowing experience for first-time users. But it’s difficult to give people that opportunity at scale.

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Vertigo Games Announces Flatscreen Entry in Acclaimed ‘Arizona Sunshine’ VR Franchise

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It’s been nearly a decade since Vertigo Games released Arizona Sunshine (2016) on PC VR headsets, serving up one of the industry’s first immersive zombie-shooting adventures. Now the Netherlands-based studio is bringing the franchise to PC and console as a “reimagined” flatscreen game.

While names can be deceiving, the flatscreen version of Arizona Sunshine isn’t a VR-to-flatscreen port of either the original 2016 version or the more recently released Arizona Sunshine Remake (2024) as such, but rather a fully reimagined third-person action game that takes the series’ zombie combat and combines it with the story introduced in Arizona Sunshine 2 (2023).

From the trailer, it also appears to be designed around larger zombie hordes and spectacle combat rather than the slower, more methodical pacing of VR. Weapons include shotguns, flamethrowers, grenade launchers, machetes, and more, with Sunny’s canine pal, Buddy, actively taking part in combat.

Slated top release on PS5, Xbox, Switch 2, and PC sometime this year, the flatscreen game promises both solo and co-op gameplay, the latter of which lets you play as Buddy.

Vertigo Games seems to be following some recent precedent set by Moss studio Polyarc Games, which announced in May it was working on a flatscreen adaptation of the VR puzzle-platformer series, which combines both Moss (2018) and sequel Moss: Book II (2022) into a single PC/console title, Moss: The Forgotten Relic.

Like Polyarc, Vertigo Games has experienced some recent turmoil, which puts the Arizona Sunshine flatscreen game announcement under an odd spotlight; last week, the studio announced was closing its Amsterdam-based satellite studio known for VR action-adventure Metro Awakening VR (2024).

Granted, this isn’t the first flatscreen game by Vertigo Games. Founded in 2008, the Rotterdam-based studio released a number of flatscreen adventure games before working exclusively on VR games.

Still, it’s a marked shift in priorities prompted by Meta’s recent Reality Labs XR pivot division, which not only saw the closure of a several internal game studios and a torrent of cancelled projects, but also the revelation it was pulling funding from a number of third-party VR projects as well.

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Following Parent Company Merger, ‘Walking Dead VR’ Studio’s Next Project Won’t Be in VR

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The developer behind The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is no longer working on VR projects following a merger last year that has effectively retooled the studio to develop a traditional PC/console title.

According to Game File, the former Skydance team—which developed VR titles The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (2020), The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution (2022), and Skydance’s Behemoth (2024)—is now working on an unannounced non-VR title for PC and consoles.

The change follows the 2025 merger between Skydance Media and Paramount, which recently consolidated the company’s gaming operations under the newly formed Paramount Games Studio.

Skydance’s Behemoth | Courtesy Skydance Interactive

Shawn Kittelsen, Paramount Games Studio’s Head of Creative and Production, confirmed the news with Game File, noting the former VR-focused team is currently developing an unannounced game for PC and consoles.

Kittelsen revealed the new Paramount gaming team is made up of two former internal Skydance Studios, one of which created The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners, and the other behind upcoming PC/console flatscreen game Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra.

The move seems to mark the end (or significant pause) of the studio’s tenure as a dedicated VR developer following its spin-up by Skydance in 2016, which saw its first title Archangel (2017) release across all major VR headsets.

While still unconfirmed, it was reported earlier this year that Skydance was working on an official Harry Potter VR title slated to release as a Quest exclusive, although it was cancelled as a result of Meta pulling funding to it and a number of AAA projects across the ecosystem, including a sequel to Batman: Arkham Shadow (2024) by Meta’s Sanzaru Games, which Meta closed alongside Armature Studio and Twisted Pixel.

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Vertigo Games Shutters ‘Metro Awakening’ Studio Amid “challenging” VR Market

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Vertigo Games, the Netherlands-based VR veteran behind a host of popular titles, is closing its Amsterdam studio, citing continued challenges within the VR games market.

The news was announced by CEO Richard Stitselaar in an open letter, noting “the VR market remains a challenging space,” which is resulting the in closure of Vertigo Studios Amsterdam.

Originally called Force Field before being acquired by Rotterdam-based Vertigo Games in 2021, the studio produced a number of VR games and experiences over the years, including Anne Frank House VR (2018), Coaster Combat (2017) and Landfall (2017) as Force Field, and Metro Awakening VR (2024) as Vertigo Studios Amsterdam.

Notably, the Rotterdam-based sister studio was itself acquired by Embracer Group’s Plaion (ex-Koch Media) in 2020 for $60 million, known for Arizona Sunshine (2016), Arizona Sunshine 2 (2023), and After the Fall (2021).

The company didn’t provide details regarding the number of employees affected, a timeline for the closure, or whether any projects currently in development (or staff) will be transferred to other teams within the organization.

The shutdown reflects an all too familiar trend facing both the VR industry and games industry as a whole. Earlier this year Meta announced it was shutting down a number of internal VR studios amid a wider shift in its Reality Labs XR division to instead focus on AI and smart glasses.

This included the cancellation of a number of unannounced games, such as a Batman: Arkham Shadow sequel from Meta’s Sanzaru Games, an unannounced Harry Potter VR game for Quest from Skydance Games, and a major project from Moss developers Polyarc.

Survios, one of VR’s most senior game studios and developer behind Alien: Rogue Incursion (2024), has also effectively shut down following a layoff of a majority of staff.

Additionally, social VR platform Rec Room, once valued at $3.5 billion, shut down on June 1st. Meanwhile, Meta’s own Horizon Worlds is now focused “almost exclusively” on mobile in the future as Quest players will no longer have access to future content.

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Snap Acquires AR Startup Illumix to Boost Next-gen ‘Specs’ Glasses

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Snapchat parent Snap has acquired Illumix, an augmented reality software company behind Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery (2019), an AR adaptation of the popular horror franchise. The acquisition goes far beyond developing games for Snap’s upcoming AR glasses though.

As first reported by Variety, Snap has acquired Bay Area-based Illumix for an unspecific amount, something that’s slated to boost the company’s AR glasses efforts—and not by stocking the next-gen pair of Snap Spectacles with AR games.

Founded in 2017, Illumix is building a perception layer for phones, AR glasses, and robots that essentially lets software understand and interact with the physical world.

As noted by Variety, Snap is primarily interested in Illumix’s work in scaling that mapping technology and building it out for real-world experiences. Notably, Snap is slated to adopt Illumix’s technology and platform, and retain most of Illumix’s staff.

Snap Spectacles (gen 5) | Courtesy Snap Inc

Illumix’s proprietary spatial mapping and AR platform is “designed to make AR experiences work reliably in […] real-world environments—persistent, context-aware, and anchored to the spaces around us,” Illumix CEO Kirin Sinha says.

“That work has powered AR experiences across real-world venues, spanning location-based entertainment, enterprise, and gaming. This acquisition is a major milestone for Illumix and a powerful next chapter for the technology, platform, customers, partners, and team we’ve built,” Sinha continues. “Snap’s bold vision for AR and AI strongly aligns with what we have always believed: that the future of computing will be more immersive, more intuitive, and ultimately more human.”

The acquisition follows recent layoffs at Snap, which notably didn’t affect Specs Inc., its recently formed AR glasses subsidiary. They did however affect 1,000 team members, including 16% of Snap’s full-time employees, and came alongside a closure of more than 300 open roles—something Snap CEO Evan Spiegel described as a part of the company’s “crucible moment.”

While Snap hasn’t shown off its next-gen AR glasses yet, we’re hoping to learn more at Augmented World Expo (AWE) later this month, which takes place in Long Beach, California on June 16th. There, Spiegel is set to deliver a keynote titled ‘Making Computing More Human‘.

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Valve Confirms Steam Frame and Steam Machine Coming This Summer

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We still don’t know exactly when Steam Frame, Valve’s standalone VR headset, is set to launch, although now the company has confirmed both it and Steam Machine are slated to arrive this summer.

Valve previously aimed to launch Steam Frame and Steam Machine, its console-style PC, in early 2026.

Due to the ongoing component crisis though, which has seen RAM and storage prices skyrocket, Valve said in February it had to rethink release and pricing around both devices.

Now, Valve has at least confirmed in a Steam news update that its wayward VR headset and Steam-flavored mini-PC are coming sometime this summer.

As a part of the announcement, Valve reiterated it’s added both Steam Frame and Steam Machine to its Verified program, which lets users know how well a game works across specific Steam hardware, including Steam Deck.

While Valve says Steam Frame primarily targets wireless PC play, specific games can also feature a Steam Frame Standalone Verified badge.

According to Valve’s guidelines, flatscreen games must run at a minimum 30 fps at 1,280 x 720 during normal play, whereas standalone VR titles must run at a minimum of 72 fps at 1,728 x 1,728 during normal play. Valve says VR games below 1,440 x 1,440 will appear with an ‘Unsupported’ badge, which notably won’t stop users from buying or attempting to play the game in question.

Although Valve seems to be getting its ducks in a row for the launch of both Steam Frame and Steam Machine on the software side of things, one very big missing piece of the puzzle is pricing.

Considering Valve announced last week that Steam Deck is getting a sizable price hike, bringing an increase of $240 to $300 to its handheld gaming PC, it could be a sign of sticker shock yet to come.

Still, if Valve is confident enough to announce a summer release window now, we should know sooner rather than later.

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