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As an Independent Prezi Expert company, we’re often exposed to exciting new technologies and at this year’s Prezi Expert conference we got our first look at the new Prezi AR (augmented reality) technology!

First debuted publicly in April during Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s talk at TED2017, Prezi AR essentially bridges the gap between the real world—which presenters exist in—and the digital world—which our slides exist in. While the technology itself is still in beta, Prezi AR could conceivably be the first step toward eliminating the disconnect between a presenter onstage and his/her slideshow on a movie theater-sized screen nearby.

Needless to say, once we were able to use this technology ourselves and experience its potential, we were eager to showcase it for a real-world presentation opportunity.

Enter Andrew Howell of the Salt Lake City-based law firm York Howell & Guymon.

Andrew had an exciting opportunity to present at the Cashflow Wealth Summit—the largest online financial event of the year with over 15,000 registrants—and he came to us looking for help creating a presentation that would help him standout among the many high-profile industry leaders that would be participating in the event.

Little did Andrew know how far off the traditional presentation path his simple request would take him!

We shared a demo of the Prezi AR technology with Andrew and he was immediately intrigued. He knew his topic “Estate Planning Basics: Planning for your protection & your family’s future” wasn’t considered the most attention-grabbing theme (his words, not ours!) and was excited to see how AR paired with our visual reimagining of his content would make his presentation more engaging and relatable to the general public.

Plus, he knew we’d successfully applied a similar design strategy for his partner David York’s popular TEDx presentation in 2015.

Ultimately, we had Andrew create a makeshift “studio” with a white background so he’d be able to display Prezi content live along with the webcam feed of him delivering his presentation—creating an immersive presentation experience where Andrew was able to gesture toward and even touch his presentation content while maintaining the forward and backward control of a traditional presentation.

For the design, we strategized with Andrew to turn a text-heavy slideshow into a highly visual presentation featuring Darth Vadar as his “mortal enemy” (i.e. Estate Tax), an audience of 400 lawyers staring at him skeptically, a chessboard reinforcing the strategy involved in Asset Protection and an image of Andrew himself as his “Alter Ego!”

Andrew presented his Prezi AR presentation at the Cashflow Wealth Summit Thursday, June 22—making him the second presenter ever to give a public presentation using Prezi AR! We were thrilled with the results and want to thank Prezi for the opportunity to utilize its beta technology and Andrew Howell for bravely agreeing to go on this adventure with us!

Check out Andrew’s AR Presentation Highlights!

To see other exciting ways we are rethinking slideshows, check out our PORTFOLIO!

For more information on Prezi AR, check out this blog post