Find Anything In Any Building Using AR, Without Downloading an App — Caspar Thykier & Connell Gauld

May 5, 2026

Caspar Thykier, CEO and co-founder of Zappar, builds app-free AR products for businesses. Connell Gauld, CTO and co-founder, engineers spatial computing and visual positioning. They discuss app-free indoor navigation called Spaces, AR breadcrumbs and audio guidance, running navigation on future glasses, and real-world uses in hospitals, retail, robots, and accessibility.

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INSIGHT

App Free Turn By Turn Indoor Navigation

Spaces delivers turn-by-turn indoor navigation via AR breadcrumbs on the web without requiring an app download.
Users scan a QR or tap a link and get searchable points of interest like restrooms or meeting rooms instantly in their phone browser.

INSIGHT

Visual Positioning Replaces GPS Indoors

Zappar localizes users indoors using visual positioning systems from partners like Immersal and Mapset queried with live camera images.
That provides room-level accuracy which GPS cannot deliver inside buildings.

ADVICE

Solve Motion Tracking Before Glasses Rollout

Prioritize motion tracking to move web AR navigation into lightweight glasses form factors.
ARKit/ARCore handle motion on phones but current slim smart glasses lack that tracking, so solve sensing before full glasses deployment.

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The AI XR Podcast had a massive news week and one of its best guest conversations of the year. Caspar Thykier and Connell Gauld, CEO and CTO co-founders of Zappar, joined Charlie Fink and Ted Schilowitz to talk about something deceptively simple: helping people find stuff.

Zappar's new product, Spaces, is app-free indoor navigation built on the web. QR code or link in a meeting invite — your phone shows AR breadcrumbs to the nearest restroom, the right meeting room, the hospital ward three floors away. No app download. No specific hardware. No Azure dependency. Caspar put the pitch simply: it's fundamentally just helping people find stuff. Connell's vision: the same technology running in glasses indistinguishable from a regular pair, within four to five years.

AI XR News: Elon Musk's $135 billion lawsuit against OpenAI went to trial in Berkeley. OpenAI's IPO may be pushed to 2027 over its CFO reporting structure and $600B CapEx problem. Meta is laying off 20% of its staff in two waves. Google earnings were up 10% while Meta got punished. Freepik rebranded as Magnifi with $230M ARR and a million paid subscribers. Samsung announced displayless AI smart glasses. Google partnered with Gucci for another AI glasses play. And Google put $40 billion into Anthropic.

Key Moments:

[00:03:02] Elon vs. Sam: the $135 billion trial
[00:05:09] OpenAI's IPO in jeopardy — CFO structure and $600B CapEx
[00:07:12] Meta's 20% layoffs and Charlie's read on bad CEO behavior
[00:10:32] Freepik becomes Magnifi: $230M ARR, a million subscribers
[00:13:10] Samsung Galaxy XR and Google x Gucci smart glasses
[00:15:15] Google puts $40B into Anthropic — a cloud play
[00:21:06] Spaces: turn-by-turn AR indoor navigation, no app required
[00:41:13] 16 years in XR: how Zappar survived by being the cockroach

Brought to you by Zappar, the company behind Mattercraft — the leading visual development environment for immersive 3D web experiences.

Start building at mattercraft.io.

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