Threedium partners with Proto Hologram and AWS to deliver holographic retail experiences

At this year’s National Retail Federation event, which took place in the concrete chaos of New York City in mid-January, the trio of Threedium, Proto Hologram and AWS introduced a tool in beta that points at the direction of retail’s digital evolution.

This end-to-end process – from a sketch or a static image to a hologram – was an apparent hit with top-tier brands in fashion, luxury and consumer packaged goods (CPG). “We knew we were creating something innovative, something that would remove a lot of manual steps from the process, but we didn’t expect that retailers would really, really want it,” says Mike Charalambous, Threedium’s CEO.

Enterprise Solutions Architect Begum Firdousi A. recently shared her experience of using the software in a LinkedIn post, demonstrating the product in action. Stills from the video can be seen throughout this article.

The coming together of the trio

When CBN last spoke with AWS Partners head Ruba Borno at AWS re:Invent 2022, she made one thing clear: AWS is “partner-obsessed.” This obsession outlined the company’s efforts to help businesses build, market and sell innovations through its marketplace – home to more than 42,000 products and services as of 2024. The goal? To create the most advanced and comprehensive tech marketplace available. “This year,” says Charalambous, “they identify retail as one of the categories to go after. They wanted to apply advanced digital solutions to enhance retail and for them, and they consider computer vision or spatial web a very important component.”

These categories are part of the broader field of artificial intelligence tasked to merge physical and digital worlds. As evident with the investments made in AR lenses by companies like META, Snap, Apple and Google, among other technologies, the way consumers interface with the digital world is rapidly changing. Proto Hologram’s approach is distinctly holographic, using projected displays to create the illusion of three-dimensional images floating in space. “AWS wanted,” Charalambous continues, “to equip brands with the best visualization tools to enhance content creation, maintain a strong omni-channel presence and deliver a consistent customer experience.” While Proto was chosen for its expertise in holographic communication, Threedium was handpicked for its 3D & AR engine, one of the best at converting static assets into interactive visuals.

The pain points

Chief among the challenges retailers and brands face is a familiar conundrum: doing more with less. They want tools that optimise costs – product development is an expensive pipeline, from ideation and design to photography and shipping – while ramping up content creation for marketing purposes, enhancing customer engagement and distinguishing themselves, particularly on crowded high streets. “As the world’s progressing, brands want to be more cost-efficient, scalable and faster in the way they deliver product cycles and ship them off to market,” he notes.

How the tool works

Once AWS brought Threedium and Proto Hologram together to tackle these pain points, the two companies had just a month to develop the tool. The result is a Canva-like interface powered by Leonardo AI, an image generator. From there, a second AI layer converts a sketch into a 2D image, which can be refined with additional prompts. Once a design is finalised, Threedium’s Unlimited 3D platform converts it instantly into a 3D file, allowing teams to share and review it, deploy it for pre-sales, or convert it into a hologram-ready experience via Proto Hologram’s platform. A fully realised holographic product is beamed in-store or in a client’s lab, without human intervention, in minutes. The process can also start with a static image, allowing designers to modify it freely. While some products – like a cashmere scarf – won’t lend themselves to holography, as consumers rely on touch to fully appreciate them, Charalambous expects advancements in haptics will bridge that gap soon. “We didn’t want to box in creativity,” Charalambous mentions. “Many product designers aren’t 3D artists, but they still have incredible ideas. We wanted to give them full creative autonomy – to put the power back in the pen.”

What it means for Threedium

For Charalambous, this collaboration cements Threedium’s place in the digital transformation tech stack for any product-oriented company. More importantly, it unlocks unprecedented insights into consumer behaviour. “We’re becoming even more useful for the core industries we’re after: fashion, luxury, automotive, homeware, jewellery, and CPG,” he says. This expanded data pipeline will enable brands to adjust their strategies depending on consumer interactions in specific locations – a hologram in a South Korean store will change depending how Koreans have engaged with it.

“And, of course,” he goes on, “having AWS pick us out of all the companies to build this technology with them definitely accelerates our growth and recognition.” Indeed, the U.S. market has become a key driver for Threedium, accounting for 55% of its turnover in 2024, and Charalambous expects 2025 to continue at the same, if not a faster, pace. Beyond this collaboration, Threedium is also working with UK-based Hypervsn, which takes a different approach to holographic projection by using a compact rotor with LED-equipped blades that spin at high speeds, creating a seamless 3D effect to the human eye, reinforcing the notion that the future of retail tech is increasingly holographic.