Augmented Reality: Leipzig-based startup Sensape cooperates with energy provider Süwag

The Leipzig-based startup Sensape enables companies worldwide to present themselves innovatively and generate interactive customer experiences with the help of a self-developed artificial intelligence (AI). This is not only fun, but also ensures that serious and important topics inspire and are remembered. With its playful approach, the young company has convinced the energy provider Süwag, among others. In an interview with Ambivation, CEO Matthiasu Freysoldt reports on how it all came about and what Sensape’s AI can do beyond that.

Hello Matthias, we met many years ago at a startup event. At that time, you had just freshly founded. While many other young companies from that time no longer exist, you are among the most successful startups in Leipzig. What do you think is the reason for that?

Hi Anne, yes, I’m glad we’re talking again after all these years. I think our success is because we responded quickly and flexibly to the market. When we founded, we wanted to use augmented reality in the retail sector for virtual try-on of shoes and jewelry. A large jewelry manufacturer also used this solution in its Chinese stores for several years, until finally the lockdown came!

However, we realized that the rest of the retail sector simply wasn’t ready yet. Rather by chance, we ended up at a trade fair through a retailer and there our solution was incredibly well received! We then adapted to the trade show and event market.

How did you get through the Corona period, which was difficult for all of us?

Just when things were going well, the COVID pandemic hit. We then focused on using our technology to make it easier to comply with hygiene regulations. For example, we used our AI to detect the correct fit of a mouth-nose protection at the entrance of stores or public buildings and to count visitors:inside.

We also developed Sensape Allstars – a solution that allowed fans to meet their soccer stars even with contact restrictions – virtually. Meanwhile, Sensape Allstars is much more than that and functions as a powerful marketing and sales tool. Most recently, we worked with Disney or Paris Saint-Germain. Now we are focusing on that and also back on retail, as the demand is coming back to reach its target audience interactively.

Our team at Sensape has also played a huge role. Everyone believed in our solutions and invested a lot of energy. We were also fortunate to have financial flexibility and backing from our investors. We have also always tried to provide unique value to our customers, and our products have always had a clear USP.

Gamification and augmented reality excite people across industries and generations. Is that our inner child that you guys are grabbing in the right places with your interactive solutions?

Yes, that’s right. We experience again and again how enthusiastic people are about AR and gamified content when we are at trade shows ourselves, but we also get reports of this from our customers.

The limbic system of our brain determines whether a piece of information is relevant to us or not. And if we experience strong emotions, such as fun, this ensures that it is processed much faster and more intensively in the brain. We use this effect to convey information as intensively and meaningfully as possible. By conveying messages in a playful way, we can transfer them more easily into long-term memory and anchor the brand or product positively in the customer’s mind.

But it is also important for us to emphasize that the meaningful way of conveying information is always in the foreground for us. We don’t want to just “fool around”, but convey a message in a meaningful way that will sustainably inspire the customer. Of course, this also works with important, more serious topics, for example in museums.

You are now active in many sectors and cooperate with Süwag, among others. How did you get your foot in the door there?

We met the Süwag team at a trade fair. Our approach of using interaction to create immersive brand experiences that are remembered and achieve the overarching marketing goals appealed to them right away. That’s how we got talking about how to use augmented reality and artificial intelligence for innovative marketing in the energy sector. This led to collaboration and we were able to implement a successful project together.

What exactly was the project about?

Süwag organizes an annual tour through the region and lets citizens playfully explore its “energy garden”. In 2020 and 2022, we developed a game with AR for Süwag’s mascot, Jörn’s Energy World, in which young visitors can let off steam.

In the wake of hygiene regulations and to prevent infections, gesture control became increasingly important from 2020. It also makes our solutions more interactive when you have to move your whole body instead of just tapping your finger.

For Süwag’s “Energy Garden”, we developed a gesture-controllable AR game with a photo function. Users see themselves on a large display and with guidance from Jörn, the goal is to catch falling caps with the head and avoid anything ominous that is still falling. Above all, gamification enables interaction with the users and appeals to the younger target group. We have succeeded in making the energy garden even more exciting for young and old. Our solution also takes a photo together with Jörn at the end and prints it out so that everyone goes home with a souvenir in hand.

That sounds really good. Were there any particular challenges you had to overcome together during the implementation and how did you manage to do it?

The biggest challenge was to come up with a coherent concept that fit with the existing concept of the Energy Garden. But I think we managed to do that pretty well. Since movement plays a big role in the energy garden, we also picked it up in the AR game.

You are constantly developing your technology. What can we look forward to in the near future?

Exactly, we’ve been developing our artificial intelligence for 8 years now, and that’s naturally added a lot of new capabilities. We are making brand experiences more personal worldwide through our recognition of up to 13 characteristics such as age, gender, movements, but also emotions.

Through ever-changing customers, we get to keep developing different concepts that use AI. A month ago, for example, we unveiled a gesture-controllable storefront that will soon be put to use. The real products you can see in the store window are enhanced by a smart projection of augmented reality on the window.

Another example is our background exchange through AI. Without green screen and in real time, user:inside can dive into other worlds, become a model of a campaign or a movie star. It’s definitely worth visiting us at one of the next trade fairs and trying it out for yourself.

Contact

Website: www.sensape.com

LinkedIn: Matthias Freysoldt