How Unity earned the title of world's most innovative AR/VR company

Unity has been named to Fast Company’s prestigious annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2023, which highlights businesses at the forefront of their respective industries. Unity ranked number one for AR and VR innovators, with Fast Company citing our work integrating data with digital twins on projects with the Vancouver Airport Authority and Orlando Economic Partnership.

“We’re humbled to be recognized by Fast Company with this honor at a time when the world is in the early stages of a substantial transformation from 2D to 3D,” said John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity. “Content specifically is moving from mostly 2D to 3D, from mostly not real-time to real-time, and from mostly linear to deeply interactive, and I believe that between now and the end of the decade, VR and AR will be fairly pervasive. At the heart of all revolutionary and connective AR and VR experiences is great content, and that’s exactly what our platform enables creators to do as they unleash their creativity and bring their vision to life in gaming and beyond.”

“At the heart of all revolutionary and connective AR and VR experiences is great content, and that’s exactly what our platform enables creators to do as they unleash their creativity and bring their vision to life in gaming and beyond.”

Added Lynette DuJohn, VP, Innovation and Chief Information Officer at Vancouver Airport Authority, “We are grateful to have partners like Unity, who, from the start, aligned with our bold vision to rethink what digital transformation means for an airport by creating YVR’s Digital Twin platform to solve challenges in aviation and beyond.”

Continue reading for four case studies that demonstrate how Unity and our customers are leading the way with innovative applications of AR and VR.

Fetal Heart VR, created by Unity developers in Poland, is a fully calibrated simulation platform for training in fetal cardiac scanning. Designed to aid doctors in the study of beating fetal hearts, the most recent version includes normal fetal heart anatomy and various congenital heart diseases. Through VR training, MWU Software’s goal is to reduce the potential stress and panic experienced when a congenital heart disease is encountered during fetal screening scans.

The Czech VR film Darkening was a Unity for Humanity grant winner last year. In the animated, immersive film, audiences are taken through a virtual world of experiences that address depression and ways to cope with it. Director and protagonist Ondřej Moravec knows that the stigma behind depression needs to change and, through this film, is using his story to raise awareness of mental health issues.

Augment Therapy, another Unity for Humanity grant winner, uses AR to help patients of all ages who are undergoing rehabilitative care get used to moving their bodies again. The app was designed by a physical therapist with health care providers in mind and features engaging games like pickleball and surfing that are played through movement (not wearables).

At the Tribeca Festival in 2022, our very own Antonia Forster, senior XR technical specialist, showcased the LGBTQ+ VR Museum that she and her cocreator Thomas Terkildsen built using Unity. Antonia put in countless hours on top of her full-time job to bring this critical project to life – which resulted in the project winning Tribeca’s New Voices award. Read more about it in this blog post.

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