In conversation with the Financial Times\u2019 technology correspondent Cristina Criddle, she explains how these models could supercharge human creativity and help people with various applications from robotics to game design. <\/p>\n
Cristina Criddle: I\u2019d love to hear more about Marble.<\/p>\n
Fei Fei Li: World Labs is a frontier model company. We are very much focusing on building the cutting edge, pushing the frontier of artificial intelligence. And for me, AI would not be complete unless it has the scope and the depth or the capability of spatial intelligence that humans have.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marble is the first product that [focuses] on allowing users to create incredible 3D worlds, by either lifting a real world through a photo into Marble, or a small video, or creating an imaginary world through Marble.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So whether it\u2019s real or imaginary, the ability to generate 3D worlds\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009and also serve the workflow of creators, is the goal of today\u2019s Marble as a product. But it\u2019s very important for us to position this as a model-first approach, that we want to get users to use our model through the product.\u00a0<\/p>\n
CC: What are you hoping to learn from user interactions with the model?<\/p>\n
FL: I really, really believe that human creativity cannot be replaced. It can be seen as superpowered, and I hope that Marble is a superpowering collaboration between creators, designers, and developers. So the more they use it and give us feedback on how to superpower them, the better it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/f2001468-8f77-4855-8703-035339d3f539.jpg\")
A 3D world created using Marble \u00a9 World Labs<\/p>\n
CC: And what are some of the applications you envision it being used for?<\/p>\n
FL: So, this is a very horizontal technology, because the need to use world models is really, really wide. For example, a concrete example is the VFX [visual effects] industry, to just preview ideas, to film virtual production movies, to ideate movie sets.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot of VFX used in Marble. It can give you a 3D space, it can give you videos with precise colour control within that space, and it can be exported in different formats so that you can use it in your workflow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We also see designers, interior designers, or architects, using Marble to not only visualise their ideas of interior or building design, but they are able to tour around this, because it\u2019s almost like taking a tour in the mind\u2019s eye. You can be immersed in that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We also have seen robotic simulation developers using Marble as the foundation to simulate training environments for robotics, whether it\u2019s navigation or manipulation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We also have seen game developers using Marble, especially we provide mesh colliders and mesh structure so that game developers can very easily download the worlds and the meshes and build gameplay.<\/p>\n
We have also seen the researchers wanting to use Marble as an immersive environment to study human psychology and clinical conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So every use case we have seen so far, there\u2019s one unifying theme, which is it saves people time<\/p>\n
So every use case we have seen so far, there\u2019s one unifying theme, which is it saves people time. Because ideation, abrasion and usage is a loop of work. And Marble helps the tech artists, developers, researchers, save time.<\/p>\n
CC: And what will people do with more time? I think this is the big question. Is this an excuse to lay off people, or is there something that\u2019s going to be created out of giving more time to people?<\/p>\n
FL: It depends on if you believe creativity is bounded or unbounded. I believe human creativity is unbounded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For example, when we worked with our Sony Studio partner on creating our video for Marble, the virtual production tech artists and developers told us, because they can use Marble to actually create the movie for us, they\u2019re able to play with far more ideas than they\u2019d have the time for if they were doing it in a traditional way. Because the traditional way, they have to wait very, very long to get one idea visualised. Marble takes minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In fact, someone we talked to in the VFX industry said it sped up the ideation and development by 40 times. And this is our time. It\u2019s the time you can use to ideate a lot more. Because as a creator, you don\u2019t just have one idea. Sometimes, you have 10 ideas. Sometimes, the 10 ideas inspire 10 more ideas. Sometimes, you want to just do some tweaking of your ideas. And all these are expensive processes.<\/p>\n
CC: And in the gaming application, what do you think it means for how games will be developed? There\u2019s also discussion about what the role of gaming engines are now, because you can just create these 3D environments.<\/p>\n
FL: Yes, I think this is all up for disruption. I think neuro-inspired engines and simulation gaming engines are due for improvements. And that is to make developers and creators\u2019 lives better. I think Marble, and also our earlier work, RTFM [a world model released<\/a> in October], are all part of this latest GenAI effort. We\u2019re at the forefront of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n And I also think games are not just purely games. We\u2019re seeing a blend of games with experiences, education, and productivity. And this new trend, what we see in creativity and content is called transmedia. And transmedia also can leverage all these generative AI tools like Marble.<\/p>\n