By Zach Winn

Over the past few months, while many workers were adjusting to a newfound reliance on Zoom meetings and Slack messages, employees at companies including toy designer Mattel, banking giant BNP Paribas, and the multinational energy corporation Enel Group have been collaborating in shared spaces. They’ve been using whiteboards and sticky notes to organize ideas, and even finishing up work sessions with handshakes and high fives, all without the slightest concern of contracting Covid-19.

That’s because they’re meeting virtually on the platform of Spatial, a startup using augmented and virtual reality to improve remote collaboration. The platform works on most virtual reality headsets available today, simulating the experience of in-person meetings with life-like avatars, dynamic sound, and interactive controls. It also allows users to generate and manipulate content including 3D models, images, videos, and PDFs, with simple hand gestures and voice commands.