20 Nov 2025
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Mike Boland
AWE Talks: What is Immersive Engineering, and Why Does it Matter?
Welcome back to AWE Talks, our series that revisits the best AWE conference sessions. With AWE USA 2025 concluded, we have a fresh batch of session footage to sink our teeth into for weeks to come.
We continue the action this week with a deep dive into the friction that's held back XR adoption among many enterprises. Seimens defines the problem and offers practical fixes for getting over common hurdles.
See the summarized takeaways below, along with the full session video. Stay tuned for more video highlights each week and check out the full library of conference sessions on AWE’s YouTube Channel.
Speakers
Ben Widdowson, Siemens
Key Takeaways & Analysis
– XR's ability to boost enterprise productivity is usually framed as a high-ROI no brainer.
– That business case is often accurate but usually fails to highlight practical challenges.
– For example, XR can elevate engineering & design with 3D perspectives on CAD models.
– However, in large organizations, optimizing all those CAD models for XR is impractical.
– A given product can include hundreds of engineers and thousands of CAD elements.
– Interrupting coordinated workflows to convert everything to XR-friendly formats is disruptive.
– Recognizing this challenge, Siemens has begun to find practical ways to integrate XR better.
– It devised ways for XR to be a companion experience to traditional CAD desktop workflows.
– Known as immersive engineering, it breaks the cycle of having to export & optimize files.
– Rather, using Sony XR headsets, CAD models can be converted to 3D on the fly.
– From the user perspective, they can see their desktop CAD workflows next to 3D models.
– Their standard CAD workflows can be "translated" to 3D in real time for rapid prototyping.
– As they modify CAD models, corresponding changes are rendered in the 3D model.
– This not only prevents lots of onerous file exports, but meets engineers halfway.
– In other words, they can continue working in familiar CAD interfaces (mouse and keyboard).
– Working with Sony, Siemens achieved a 25 percent productivity gain for its design workforce.
– BAC deployed immersive engineering for tangible results in its automotive design process.
– Next up for Siemens is to bring AI into the mix for more intelligent design & engineer copilots.
– By training AI on a company's engineering protocols and products, it will unlock this vision.
– This will be delivered through Microsoft's ubiquitous enterprise software and Copilot AI.
– Siemens and all the partners bringing these visions into reality are only getting started.
For more color and depth, see the full session below...
Want more XR insights and multimedia? ARtillery Intelligence offers an indexed and searchable library of XR intelligence known as ARtillery Pro. See more here.
