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I Experienced the Sphere's AI Magic: Here's What $2.3 Billion of Technology Actually Feels Like

• 7 min read • brain-food

I testing AI for some time. The Sphere still broke my brain. Here's how Google's AI turned The Wizard of Oz into a $2.3B preview of media's future - and what you can steal for your business.

How Google's AI turned a 1939 classic into a 2025 mind-blower - and what it means for the future of, well, everything

Listen, I test AI across four different businesses. I wear an Apple Vision Pro as my daily work monitor. I've evaluated hundreds of AI tools, from spectacular failures to game-changing wins. So when I tell you the Sphere in Las Vegas made my jaw literally drop, you know I'm not easily impressed.

But there I was, a grown man from Kansas, watching The Wizard of Oz with my wife Lindsay, both of us gasping like kids when Dorothy's house landed in Oz. Not because of nostalgia (though two Kansans watching Dorothy's journey hits different), but because of what AI and $2.3 billion of technology can create when they stop asking "should we?" and start asking "what if we went completely insane with this?"

Here's what I learned testing the world's most expensive AI experiment - twice.

The Testing Lab: Two Completely Different AI Approaches

I've now experienced both of the Sphere's signature shows - Postcards from Earth (three times) and The Wizard of Oz (opening weekend). Each one showcases a different approach to AI-enhanced entertainment, and both taught me something different about where this technology is heading.

Postcards from Earth was built from the ground up for the Sphere. Director Darren Aronofsky used a custom Big Sky camera system - imagine a 316-megapixel monster that requires 12 people just to turn on and generates 32 gigabytes of data per second. The final film? Half a petabyte. That's 500,000 gigabytes of basically Earth porn in 18K resolution.

The Wizard of Oz took the opposite approach. Instead of creating new content, Google's DeepMind team used their Gemini, Veo 2, and Imagen 3 AI models to transform the 1939 classic. They didn't just upscale it - they used three game-changing techniques:

The result? Uncle Henry casually leaning against the farmhouse door in scenes where he never existed. Dorothy's freckles were popping in detail that wasn't even visible in 1939. The yellow brick road extends beyond anything Victor Fleming ever filmed.

A Quick Reality Check on "Impossible" Storage Requirements

Half a petabyte for a 50-minute film? 1.2 petabytes of data processed for The Wizard of Oz? Let me put this in perspective for you.

Back in college, I was building 3D content using a program called Bryce 3D. We'd set up a single scene, hit render, and then... wait. For days. Literally days for one image. When it was finally done, we'd save it to a Zip drive (remember those?) holding a whopping 100 megabytes. When Jaz drives came out with 1 gigabyte of storage, we thought we'd reached the promised land. "We'll never need more storage than this!"

Fast-forward to today: The Sphere is casually throwing around data volumes that would have required a warehouse full of Jaz drives. But here's the pattern I've learned from testing technology across multiple businesses: storage limitations are always temporary. What seems impossible today becomes a thumb drive tomorrow.

In the near future, that half-petabyte Postcards from Earth file will probably fit on whatever replaces our current SSDs. Some kid in 2045 will laugh at how we needed special infrastructure just to move 500,000 gigabytes around. Storage challenges don't disappear - they just move the decimal point.

The real innovation isn't the storage itself. It's what we choose to do when storage stops being the limitation.

The "Holy Crap" Moments That Actually Delivered

You know that moment in Postcards from Earth when the screen expands from normal movie size to the full 160,000 square feet? I've tested every VR headset on the market, and this was the first time I experienced that level of immersion WITHOUT something strapped to my face. The depth, the 3D technology, the way it fills your entire peripheral vision - it's essentially Vision Pro technology at venue scale.

But here's what really got me during The Wizard of Oz: the tornado scene. Not just the visuals (though watching it wrap around you in 16K is insane), but the full experience. The 560-kilowatt fans kick up actual wind and debris. Your seat rumbles with haptic feedback. The temperature drops. You're not watching Dorothy get swept up - you're in that farmhouse with her.

When the door opens to Oz and the entire 22-story screen transforms from sepia-toned Kansas to explosive Technicolor? Lindsay and I - two adults who've seen this movie dozens of times - literally gasped.

Let's Talk About the AI Elephant in the Room

"But Ben, isn't this tampering with a classic?"

Here's my take after testing this in person: They're not replacing the original. They're translating it for a format that didn't exist in 1939. It's like being upset that The Beatles remastered their albums for stereo when they were originally mixed for mono.

The AI enhancements were surprisingly seamless. Could I spot them if I watched it three more times? Probably. Did they pull me out of the experience? Not once. The team trained their AI models not just on the film, but on archival footage, production notes, and behind-the-scenes materials to keep everything authentic to the original performances.

This isn't AI replacing human creativity - it's AI as a tool to expand human creativity into new dimensions. Literally.

The Stuff That's Actually Pure Vegas (And That's OK)

Not everything needs to work in your business. The 16-foot helium-filled flying monkeys? Pure Vegas spectacle. The flames during the Wizard's chamber scene? Incredible for entertainment, probably overkill for your next quarterly presentation.

But here's what fascinated me: even the "gimmicky" stuff served a purpose. The scents during forest scenes, the temperature changes, the flying leaves and snow - they create what psychologists call "memory anchoring." You won't just remember seeing The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere. You'll remember feeling it.

What You Can Actually Steal for Your Business (Without the Billion-Dollar Budget)

After testing this technology, here's what's actually practical for real-world implementation:

Today (Under $1,000):

Next Year (Under $10,000):

The Framework: Start with one sensory enhancement (usually visual), test with real users, add layers only when they add value. The Sphere didn't start with smell-o-vision - they started with a really, really big screen.

The Bottom Line: This Is Your Future, Just Expensive Right Now

Here's what I tell every business owner: The Sphere isn't just entertainment. It's a $2.3 billion preview of where all media is heading. The same AI that put Uncle Henry in scenes he never filmed will eventually let you put your products in contexts you never photographed. The technology turning 1939 film grain into 16K clarity will transform your decades-old training videos into immersive experiences.

But right now? Right now, you should just experience it.

Look, I'm not usually the "you have to see it to believe it" guy. I prefer frameworks and systematic testing. But after three rounds of Postcards from Earth and the opening weekend of The Wizard of Oz, I can tell you this: describing the Sphere is like trying to explain color to someone who's only seen black and white.

My verdict after extensive testing: If you're in Vegas, skip the fancy dinner and spend the money on Sphere tickets instead (starting around $49 for Postcards from Earth, varying prices for The Wizard of Oz). Whether you choose Postcards from Earth or The Wizard of Oz, you're not just watching a show - you're experiencing the future of entertainment. And as someone who tests the future for a living, trust me when I say this future is worth seeing.

Two Kansans found their Oz in a giant sphere in the desert. Dorothy was right - there's no place like home. But experiencing what AI can do when it's unleashed at this scale? That comes pretty close.

Ready to have your mind blown? Book your Sphere experience:

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to figure out how to convince Lindsay we need to go back for rounds two and three of The Wizard of Oz. You know... for research.

P.S. - Want to know which specific AI tools from the Sphere's tech stack you can actually use in your business today? I'm testing them across my companies right now. Subscribe to the AI Brain newsletter and I'll share what actually works (and what spectacularly fails) in real-world implementation.

Created with ❤️ by humans + AI assistance 🤖