Basically, the AR wall is a giant LED screen that they can use to display a background of some sort as opposed to having the actors acting against a green screen. It allows them to create some interesting locations for stories without without having to build a full set or find an appropriate location.

SNW even uses it for their main engineering aboard the Enterprise, though that’s why we didn’t see main engineering at all in season three; it apparently takes too long to set up and break down in front of the AR wall.

The technology is becoming increasingly common, and some of them do use generative AI. However, the one the Star Trek productions use does not.

I remain skeptical. Unnamed sources claiming it was someone on the art department who hand drew it is not entirely convincing. I’d like to see the layers. Or, failing that, an explanation for why the characters are so inconsistent and indistinguishable from one panel to the next. Why the shadows don’t make any sense. Why the hands when we see them don’t make sense.

Also, the article claims the AR wall is using machine learning, and I’d like to see a source on that. My understanding, based on what the VFX supervisor for Disco, PIC, SNW, and SFA has said is that their AR walls do not integrate machine learning.