AR in Action: How DeepSight's Insights Transform Industries

NECXT (00:05)
Hi everyone and welcome to NECXT, the podcast where we break down frontiere technologies and explore how they’re reshaping businesses, industries, and customer experiences. In this podcast, no buzzwords, no jargon, just real conversation that have decision makers turn disruption into concrete opportunities. My name is David and today we’re diving into a topic that’s often misunderstood, augmented reality.

For years, AR has been hyped as a flashy consumer tool. We talked about cool filters, interactive ads, futuristic shopping experiences. But here’s the reality. In the last two years, it’s actually industries like supply chain, manufacturing, and education that are leading AR adoption. So what’s driving this shift? And could these industries be the Trojan horse that bring AR into the mainstream?

To help us unpack all of these, I have the great pleasure today to be joined by Nicolas Bearzatto CEO and founder of DeepSight, a Canadian-based company at the forefront of AR innovation in education. Together, we’ll be talking about the real impact of AR, the challenges businesses face in adopting it, and what it would take for AR to become a true business transformational tool and not just a gimmick.

So whether you are a business leader wondering if AR is worth investing in or a tech innovator looking for where the real opportunities lie, this episode is for you. So let’s get started. Nicolas, welcome again. Thank you very much for being here today. Can you start by introducing yourself and share DeepSight’s mission in the AR space?

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (01:51)
a pleasure to be here David. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I agree with what you say. I think AR is living a real change right now and DeepSight is at the forefront of this. So to tell you a bit where we started, I started DeepSight after my university studies with a childhood friend of mine. That was over six years ago when we got interested into this new technology.

that was about to change how we interact with the virtual worlds. And over time, over connections, we got into manufacturing and industrial sector. And today, DeepSight has evolved to become a knowledge management platform where we help manufacturing and industrial company train, certify, upskill their workforce through the use of augmented reality and artificial intelligence.

Today we work in many many different areas from metal transformation, mining industry, aerospace, agro food, but in all of these industries we help real humans, operators, technicians, mechanics do their job in a safer way, in more efficient way and being able to help them with that is really a pleasure.

to be able to be part of this change and to be able to work with enterprise. So that’s a bit where we are today.

NECXT (03:12)
Right. That’s great. And when I met

you in San Francisco end of last year, I remember when you pitched your company, you told me something that, you know, as a marketeer, I really liked because you humanized the company. You told me something about DeepSight being the good old colleague next to you. Can you just say a few words about that? Because that’s really concrete. And here on NECXT, we really like concrete examples of what technology can bring.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (03:38)
Absolutely, absolutely. I think if I remember correctly when I pitched it to you, David, I presented it as your virtual companion. And where that came from is that oftentimes today in enterprises, actually three out of four new employees are trained by companionship. So that means when a new employee comes in, needs an expert to be paired with him to be able to transfer his knowledge.

NECXT (03:47)
Exactly.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (04:05)
And that can last from a few days to months at a time. But in the job market today, where we have labor shortages, where we have these experts going to retirement, it creates a problem for enterprises. And so we thought that augmented reality and smart glasses would help alleviate this problem for enterprise and sort of create this virtual companion, this virtual assistant that’s always with you.

able to guide you, to talk to you, to collect some data on what you do as well, to be able to trace what you do, and that has become the essence of the DeepSight ecosystem.

NECXT (04:45)
I love it and we’ll

come back to that when we’ll be talking about concrete impact that AR can have for companies and clients you work with. I’d like to step back a little bit and talk about this use of AR in the supply chain and education that you mentioned. For years, as we said in the introduction, AR and overall mixed realities were seen as a consumer focused technology.

actually industries like supply chain education are now leading adoption. Why is that? And as I said in the intro could the supply chain be the Trojan horse for this famous mass adoption that we’re waiting for?

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (05:29)
I believe so. I believe so David. I think XR, which is the spectrum from virtual reality to augmented reality, made its way to the consumers first with virtual reality. And to explain a bit the difference, when we’re in VR, we’re wearing a helmet that’s cutting us off from our environment. So it’s more of a headset that everything we’ll see is virtual.

NECXT (05:32)
you

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (05:55)
generated by a computer and we are not in contact with our environment. So that came in the form of games, in the form of entertainment experience, and that’s how we first got connected to it. Today, where DeepSight is leading the charge is in the AR side, so the augmented reality side. And this is a bit different because it uses glasses such as this one. So this is the HoloLense 2.

from Microsoft that allow you to see your environment. So you still have the perception of your surroundings, of the dangers of the persons around you. But through those glasses, we’re adding virtual elements, holograms, videos, pictures that are teaching you, guiding you in a sense. And I believe that today, AR is where the real opportunity lies because it keeps us humans connected to our environment.

And this, I think, has tremendous impact.

NECXT (06:55)
Yeah, and

you did throw in a few concepts that are key and very interesting about human connection and about enhancing the current or the present experience. As a CMO, as a marketeer, I was always struggling

when people were pitching about the problem, you know, trying to have a problem-solving approach. Sometimes it’s not about a problem, it’s just about enhancing

the current experience, enhancing the now. There’s already opportunities there. There’s not always an issue to face. And that’s what exactly you guys are doing because there is this companionship, there is this opportunity and you just enhance it through technology in a way that still roots people into the now, into their surrounding, into social communities, but you’re adding that

virtual level that is enhancing their capabilities, efficiency, or whatsoever based on the context you’re involving into. So it’s really these two layers that are bridging that make, I think, AR a very interesting tool today.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (08:03)
I think so too. I think AR is an enhancement to the tools that exist today. We’re very understanding at DeepSight that there exists other solutions for learning management system, for digital instruction that could be video or digital PowerPoint instruction guides. But I think, and we think at DeepSight that augmented reality is just the next step to it. It’s enhancement to it.

And that’s where we have to figure out how do we bring the most value. We don’t want to overcomplexify it. We don’t want to turn it into a gimmick. We want to be able to enhance the learning experience of people and go and get some optimization, some advancements for the companies in doing so with this new technology.

NECXT (08:47)
Great. So let’s go back to you as an entrepreneur. You are the CEO, as you said, the founder of a cutting edge company. It’s great, but it also comes with challenges, especially when you are evolving into a tech space that not everyone understands. And as you said, there’s a lot of misconceptions around AR, VR and everything. So as an entrepreneur,

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (08:52)
Yeah.

Okay.

NECXT (09:13)
What are the biggest challenges you face when pitching AR solutions to potential clients?

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (09:21)
I think as an entrepreneur, you’re always facing multiple challenges, but that’s the fun of it, if I can say so. But I think one of the challenges we face with enterprise still today is the demystifying this technology, is educating the enterprises, the clients about what it is today, where it’s at, and what it can do. Oftentimes when we initiate discussion with clients,

A common misconception is they’re throwing VR and AR in the same basket. Oh, I’ve done it with my kids at Disney last year. I know all about AR. No, I’m pretty sure, it wasn’t the same technology we’re talking about. So there is still some education to be made. But luckily, I think there’s a shift. There’s a wind of change happening. And more and more companies coming to us come with the research done, come with the

the understanding of what they’re looking for, of where they want to go. So we’re seeing a shift there. It’s very encouraging. And afterwards, the challenge when we get to start a project with the clients is not only the technology, but it’s the change management. I think it’s real for many multiple technological projects, but it’s especially true with augmented reality is that

It’s a nice piece of technology that can add a lot of value, but it shifts the way people work, the way people think, the way people collaborate. So we have to be very cognizant of this and take it step by step to bring the most success. And one thing that one of our partners says often that I like is three words that we’ve rooted into our methods is people, process and technology.

If you don’t have these three things, your project will never know any success. And notice how technology is the third piece of this equation, because first of all, you need to get the people on board, get them motivated, get them understanding where it’s at. The process has to be put in place in order to track, measure the return on investment, to track the utilization of the product. And then…

at the end, well, the technology is what encompasses all of these things, but it will only be used, deployed and benefited if people in process are taken into account. So this is one of the challenges we focus on, but we’re adding multiple success that are showing us that we’re doing it right and clients that are happy to jump on board with us and try it.

NECXT (11:56)
That’s great.

You mentioned something about the holistic aspect to digital adoption, digital transformation. We’ll come back to that in a few seconds. You just said that more and more companies come more prepared. They’ve done their homework. So do you feel that today companies are truly ready to embrace AR?

Or if not, what’s still holding them back? Is it still that technological aspect? Is it what you mentioned, this lack of education? Is it the fact that decisions are being made in silos or is it something else?

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (12:35)
I think today there’s a lot more risk-taking or innovative approach from managers, from executive people. So that’s encouraging. We’re seeing that shift and we love it. But I think there still remain some challenges. Some of them that are out of our control. We at DeepSight developed the software that enable people to use and benefit from augmented reality. But we’re still reliant on the big players for hardware.

So the HoloLense lens is made by Microsoft. We’re integrating into the Apple ecosystem with the Apple Vision Pro. Meta is its solution. Samsung is coming out with a headset, but we still need to see a better and better version of this hardware to the point it will become glasses like you’re wearing today, that will be the hardware. And this will become a form factor that’s easier to accept.

easier to adopt, easier to deploy. I think that is one of the challenges facing us. And one other that we faced recently and we’re often facing is just access to Wi-Fi. You think in the 21st century, it’s something that’s basic, but when you’re working with a site, a factory that’s six hours from the main cities deep in the woods,

sometimes Wi-Fi access and sometimes even the cities Wi-Fi doesn’t come in correctly, those become breaks to the adoption. So still today some minor technological aspect can hinder a project, but we’ve been there, we understand it and we’re able to educate and work with the clients to make it a success. But those are the little challenges we face.

NECXT (14:19)
Little challenges, yeah. And I just want to emphasize one thing that you just said, and coming from the corporate world, as many different companies, it’s very important to realize that adopting a new technology or just thinking about what a technology can bring to your business is not just the matter of one specific department.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (14:20)
Continues. Yeah, exactly.

NECXT (14:46)
We see, okay, AR, Metaverse, all these things, it’s kind of fancy. That’s for the marketing guys, or that’s for the operations, or that’s for supply whatsoever, or that’s tech or IT. And as a matter of fact, the reality is that we all in the company contribute in building the brand experience, either internal for the employees that work for us, or the end client. And when you start realizing,

or shifting the mindset that we are building experiences that go beyond a specific department, then you also start shifting the mindset on, okay, beyond my department, my team, what is the impact on my colleagues? And that’s how you start having a holistic thinking on how and what.

technology AR in this case can bring to you. And that’s where you start thinking, okay, if I want a virtual teacher or virtual employee to be there, stand 24 seven by every employee and help them, I need access to all the data, all the knowledge that the company gathered across all these years. I need to make sure that there’s Wi-Fi as you said, I need to make sure about

education, training formats, so there’s a whole holistic approach to be adopted and it’s an enterprise project, it’s not just a department project and this is really key and I’m a true believer in the fact that thinking from a holistic experience can help you naturally break the silos and then hence facilitate at least the adoption of new technologies.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (16:32)
Absolutely, David. I like the word holistic because it was one of our common misconceptions when we started was we were so focused on deploying and visualize augmented reality instruction guides that we forgot about the people behind it to get to those instruction made to have the support of the manager, the supervisor that would deploy them supported on the floor.

And so we’ve had some little mishaps at the beginning, but then with time we learned and we developed that holistic approach where we encompass all the decision makers, all the levels of the company. And so today the solution that we have, yes, can be used to guide, train and assist operators on the floor, but it also became a tools for manager and supervisor to understand who are their competent.

our polivalent employees on the floor, how can they allocate resources when somebody is sick, when somebody doesn’t show up to work, it became also a flexibility tool so that the enterprise can understand where their strengths are, where their weaknesses are in their workforce and they’d be able to develop them and upskill them in that sense. And that other key element to that holistic approach

And I want to plug it at that point of what we do is in augmented reality to get to all this content, the solutions today, the unity, the unreal of this world that are 3D gaming engine or graphics engine, sorry, take a lot of time to build content. And that’s often a break to the adoption. So what DeepSight has developed.

is a way to use smart glasses like the HoloLense or the Apple Vision Pro. Put it on the head of the experts in the factory on site and being able to say next time you’re going to do this maintenance that only you know how to do because you’ve been with us 25 years and we’re relying on you and when you’re going to leave we’re going to be deep trouble. Well what we say is put on the glasses and record yourself and what we’re going to obtain

is a recording of the audio, a video of what you did, the position of your hands, your head, and a digital twin of the environment, so a 3D scan. And we obtain sort of a ghost of how the person is doing things. And with this, we feed it through our AI. And with generative AI, we’re able to synthesize, decorticate what happened in this sequence of events and generate the work instruction in a matter of a couple of minutes.

for the enterprise to be able to deploy it. So that was a learning that took a couple of years to get to, to develop and to deploy. But this has been a game changer for us in this holistic approach to say, to get to point B, we need to take into account the people and we need to take into account the process to get there. And that we’ve mastered and has made tremendous impact and distinguished our solution from others.

NECXT (19:36)
I love it and I especially love it because you just came in with a very concrete example that brings value to your clients in a relative easy way. So that leads me to my next question because for many people and maybe some who listening to us today, AR is still seen as a gimmick and nice to have, you know, but it’s already driving real business impact as we just heard. So you have maybe

another example where AR led to measurable efficiency gains or growth for your clients.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (20:12)
Yeah, yeah. Actually, David, I’ll give you three for one today. Three different examples with three different clients, three different industries, but three real ways in which augmented reality adds some impact to them. The first one being, I think, the typical training onboarding of new employees. So with agro food clients here in Quebec, Canada,

They had challenges with turnover. Lots of people coming in, leaving, and every new employee that had to be integrated into the company required a companion, an expert to be paired with to be able to train on how to use the machine, start up a line, do a line change, inspection, cleanup, and all that required a lot of time. And those experts that could be doing value-added work were sort of sucked in into

just training of regular work and not much value added work. So with our solution, we were able to replace these moments by saying, well, when you’re going to need to train, practice, visualize it, you’ll have access to the glasses. You’ll have access to the augmented reality on tablet as well. And this became sort of the virtual assistant that guides new employees and bring them to proficiency.

So that’s one that’s interesting, that’s one that we’re seeing a lot. But as we grow, DeepSight is trying to grow out of just being a training platform, because there’s a lot of competition on that side, and we think we can bring more to that. So another of our clients working in the metal transformation industry, so it’s a foundry here in Quebec, uses it a lot in everything related to health and safety. So being able to…

certified their employee in lockout, tagout maneuvers. Every year they need to re-certify their employee. They need to respect the code, be audit ready, we say. And with augmented reality, they were able to create the certification processes. And now the employees can visualize them on glasses, on tablet, do them, activate them, and be able to say, check, he’s done it.

And all that while he’s doing it, we didn’t have to take an expert to look at it with a notepad. We were able to do so with the glasses. And it’s recording, taking data on everything so that if here at the CNSSD or OSHA in the United States come and say, well, we want to see the record of this employee that he’s able to operate. We have all this ready, accessible in a matter of seconds because everything is digital.

So a very good practical use case for a client. And the final one to just dress while I’m at it is, and that’s just to show the multiple use of augmented reality. It all comes back to manual task, but it could be used in a wide area. And the last example that I’ll give you is OEM. So original equipment manufacturers, oftentimes they’re gonna sell machine that are worked from.

NECXT (22:48)
Yeah.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (23:11)
$15,000 to $500,000 million. And what they do is they come on site, install it, give a two weeks training to the company, and then you’re on your own. If it breaks down, if you have to inspect it, everything, they might leave you a manual of instruction, but you’re pretty much reliant of your own knowledge internally. But what we say is, why don’t the machine come with DeepSight site ready instruction guides?

that could be visualized directly on the equipment, either with tablets, smart glasses. And furthermore, when this company that bought the product requires assistance from the OEM, why don’t they connect by remote assistance? Being able to put the glasses and the operator at the factory is able to show an expert what he’s seeing, talk to him, be guided through it, and have this real-time assistance.

creating a better customer service, we’re creating a better experience for OEM to give to their clients. And ultimately for them, well, it’s a saving on cost of travel. It’s more communication with their clients to be able to sell parts, to be able to make that machine run at full capacity and really creates value for both the client and the original equipment manufacturer. So those are three ways we’re deploying our technology and they’re having real impact.

and that’s today. So it might always sound futuristic, but it can be used and have an impact today.

NECXT (24:42)
And thank you very much. Like I didn’t expect a three in one today. So it’s cool. So thank you for that. But yeah, I think it’s great to see a various, a large scale of impact or use case that, you know, this technology can bring. And as you said, it’s not like in five, 10, 15 years, it’s not futuristic. It’s not like waiting for the best in class state of the art classes. It’s there and you can already bring concrete value to.

companies. You mentioned a few times AI, the fact that you also developed your own services and products. AI is accelerating massively. You talked about the major players trying to work on the next generation of glasses. Those two combined, how do you see the future of AR evolving in the next few years?

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (25:38)
I think AI is closely intertwined with AR because these new systems that are coming out need data. Today they can search the web for data much faster than any human can ever do, but to understand the world, to be able to assist you in real time, they need to see, they need to hear, they need to feel what you feel. So that’s where I think AI and AR will merge and elevate.

both each other. Today at DeepSight we’re using already AI in multiple ways. Just I talked about this tool that generates content instantly with generative AI. We’re using it in more basic way as to do a speech to text translation or text to speech translation so that the text you write in the editor will be recited to your operator through the glasses or the tablet on the floor. So those are basic use of AI but

that they’re real uses and we’re deploying it today. What I think for us at DeepSight and what a lot of other people are looking at is AI that becomes a conversational assistant that you could speak to your assistant that you could have, hey, I’m in front of this machine. I have a trouble with this part of the equipment. What should I do? And you can talk to your virtual assistant and you will

answer and get you the answers. What I think to get there, one little misconception is that we have to create the content. The AI will only go so far as to tell you what it knows or what it has in storage. So it’s important that we build the content beforehand and then we can elevate it. We can augment it with an AI that would assist you and guide you. So we’re working on that. We’re getting there.

and we’re very excited about what’s coming on the AI front.

NECXT (27:26)
But I think listening to you,

It takes companies like DeepSight, it takes the major players in the industries to bring the hardware and to facilitate the access, but it also takes the clients, the end user, the companies in the private sector, and there again, we come back to education, change management, and holistic approach to tech adoption, in this case to AR.

are, as you said, data doesn’t come from nowhere and it needs to be aggregated. It needs to be structured in a way that it becomes then actionable. And that requires a thorough thinking ahead of just the adoption of the technology. And I think that that’s one key thing to take out from today and for decision-makers think more globally who is impacted in

company and who needs to sit at the table to really find the collateral and the bridges between the different entities of the company. Last question Nicolas, if you had a magic wand I never know how to pronounce that, wand, and could remove one, baguette magic in French indeed, and if you could remove one major barrier to AR’s mass adoption, what would it be?

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (28:39)
The magic

I think again, we discussed it a bit in California when we met, but to me, it’s the hardware. I think today that the hardware we have is exciting, it’s cool, but it’s chunky. It’s still a bit cumbersome for everyday use. It still has limited battery life, which creates deception sometime on when you want to deploy it and use it.

So to me, if I had a magic wand and could dictate where this is going, I’d like it to fast forward maybe in five years where we’re going to see augmented reality glasses that will look similar to what people wear today. And I think a couple months ago, we had some exciting news from Meta when they announced their Orion project and Mark Zuckerberg got on stage with a pair of augmented reality glasses that…

NECXT (29:27)
Mm-hmm.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (29:39)
that look exactly where we want to get. And so I think it’s in the work. I think we’re a couple of years away from it. So it’s exciting because it’s not that far. But with that magic wand, I’d probably just speed up time and get there tomorrow. And then mass adoption would accelerate, I think.

NECXT (29:58)
And we’ve seen even then, you know, even without that magic wand and these, these, you know, state of the art glasses, it’s still there. It’s still happening and it’s still bringing value to many companies and it will keep on doing so. Thank you very much, Nicolas. It was a great discussion and it was an awesome deep dive into AR and real world impact that it is bringing and that it will keep on bringing in the future. So we talked about.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (30:07)
Yeah.

NECXT (30:29)
how industries like education, supply are leading the way. We talked about what’s holding the businesses back and where the technology is really headed and it’s clearly beyond the hype and it’s,

a meaningful impact for many companies. Before we sign off, Nicolas, if there’s one thing you want to, you want our listeners to walk away with about the future,

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (30:52)
I think I’d bounce on your last idea that it’s happening today. AR is being deployed in multiple factories today. It’s having real impact. It’s bringing ROI to the company. So don’t wait. Be an innovator. Jump on board. Be curious. DeepSight will be there to assist you along the way. And yeah, I think we just have to keep going

NECXT (31:14)
based in Montreal, Canada, but you’re active all across the world, North America, but also, Europe

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (31:16)
Yes.

Correct.

market, we focus a lot on North America, but we’re having some initiatives in Europe. Being a software company, it’s not a barrier to be able to work with companies outside of our region. We’re actually looking forward to it. We’re excited.

NECXT (31:31)
and for French speaking.

All right. And I’m just

saying like maybe some people

you also speak French.

you very much. Thanks everyone for listening. If today’s conversation got you thinking about how AR could actually make a difference in your business. So as Nicolas said, don’t just let it sit in the back of your mind. Explore it, ask question and see where it can drive real value for you.

Nicolas,

thank you very much again for your time today and for sharing these amazing insights. It’s been a great conversation. And to all of you tuning in, if you enjoyed this episode, don’t hesitate to share and stay tuned with us because we’re going to have more real talk on the future of technology. So stay tuned on NECXT to see what’s next. Thank you very much. Bye bye.

Nicolas Bearzatto – DeepSight (32:24)
Thanks for having me, David.

Bye-bye.