Qualcomm entered 2025, like many big technology companies, facing skepticism around AI. Audiences had heard promises about edge AI capabilities for years now, but lacked tangible proof these systems could perform under real-world conditions. Following our work at Snapdragon Summit 2024, which brought immersive applications of on-device AI to life, Qualcomm tasked us with demonstrating their AI stack’s readiness through a series of live, high-stakes, CEO-led activations.
Our objectives were threefold: first, shift perception of edge AI from theoretical to functional by deploying it in live environments with no safety net. Second, create experiences where audiences could directly test, verify, and believe in the capabilities themselves. Third, wow Qualcomm’s universe of stakeholders - consumers, developers, and media - at three major global events: SXSW, Computex Taipei, and Snapdragon Summit.
Success would be measured by a blend of experiential engagement metrics, and the fidelity of the technology we created itself. We needed to create experiences that made people truly believe the technology was real, not by watching it work, but by testing it for themselves.
Strategy
Across SXSW, COMPUTEX Taipei, and Snapdragon Summit, we designed a year-long experiential strategy anchored in a single principle: make people walk away saying “I was there when the future felt real.” We deployed Qualcomm’s edge AI stack in progressively complex scenarios where failure would be public and immediate.
Snapdragon Summit: The Culmination
At Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm’s flagship event, we wondered — what if a keynote moment planned and executed itself, live, on stage? We surrounded Summit with agentic systems, deploying agents across multiple human-centered scenarios.
We also created four immersive experience zones where guests directly engaged with edge AI.
(Confidential information available to the jury only)
