Last week Microsoft became the first major tech company to host a keynote presentation fully in virtual reality. Despite many moving parts, the company managed to deliver a seamless, immersive presentation that could mark the future of this sort of marketing communication.

In the last 20 years, the ‘tech keynote’ has gone from hasty PowerPoint presentations in front of small groups to major multimedia productions that form the cornerstone of many marketing playbooks, often concluding with major announcements and product reveals.

Last week, Microsoft took the next step toward one possible future of the tech keynote when it delivered the opening presentation to its Ignite 2021 developer conference fully in virtual reality.

While far from the first company to deliver a virtual reality presentation, Microsoft — with its $1.73 trillion market cap — is surely the largest company to do so. And its presentation was perhaps the most ambitious and most polished we’ve yet seen, featuring custom-built scenes that stitched together immersive and traditional media alike. Adding to the complexity of execution is the fact that the keynote was designed for viewing both in VR and via a non-immersive livestream for a wider audience.