Portfolio · Case Studies · Built Results
BUILD IT.
Ship It. Done.
Every project on this page was conceived, built, and deployed — not theorized, not proposed, not shelved. M7’s portfolio spans augmented reality, voice technology, drones, NFC, AI, and metaverse experiences for some of the world’s most recognizable brands. The work speaks for itself.
456%
YoY Sales Lift — Bollé AR
80K
Activations in 14 Days — Suffolk
1st
Haptic Shake on Snapchat — CHANEL
THE AR TRY-ON THAT
Rewrote Commerce.
COVID eliminated the 60% in-store conversion rate that eyewear brands depended on. Nobody was trying on communal glasses. Virtual try-on was budding — but no one had proven it could actually move sales. M7 built it, launched it, and the results weren’t incremental. They were the only differentiating factor between one year and the next.
456%
YoY Sales Lift
Bollé Nevada Goggles
1st
Award-Winning
AR Try-On of Its Kind
The Challenge
Bollé’s own data showed 60% of in-store goggle purchasers convert after trying on with a sales associate. COVID killed that touchpoint entirely. Online sales dropped. The brand needed a way to replicate the try-on moment — digitally, at scale, and in a way that actually influenced purchase behavior.
The M7 Insight
Virtual try-on was emerging — but it was being applied to clothing, where body geometry makes it nearly impossible to get right. Eyewear and goggles were a different story: face-mapping was accurate, the product was the right scale, and the use case was obvious. M7 saw the window, proposed the build, and took full accountability for the result.
What We Built
An award-winning, immersive AR try-on experience for the Bollé Nevada goggles — breaking down key product features while letting users virtually wear the product before purchasing. Educational. Interactive. The only variable that changed year-over-year.
The Outcome
456% year-over-year sales increase on the singular product. No incremental marketing spend. No new influencer campaign. No new social budget. The only differentiating factor was the AR try-on. Won a Webby Award for Best Use of Filter & Lenses.
NFC + IoT
80,000 ACTIVATIONS
IN 14 Days.
Construction sites are notoriously bad at community communication. Neighbors don’t know what’s being built, timelines slip without explanation, and goodwill erodes. Suffolk partnered with M7 to merge the physical site experience with a living digital layer — using NFC and AR to give passersby something they’d never had before: a window into the build, on demand, from the sidewalk.
80,000
NFC + AR Activations
First 14 Days Post-Launch
What We Built
NFC-powered activations at job-site fencing — tap your phone, enter the AR experience. Community members could see the building progress, access project information, and engage with the build from the street. No app download required.
The Result
80,000 activations in the first two weeks. The client had never seen engagement at that scale from a physical installation. Now a repeatable model for community engagement across Suffolk’s national portfolio.
Drone Technology
Panera Bread
7 FARMS.
2 DAYS.
National TV.
Panera had a powerful story to tell: 100% clean ingredients, sourced from real farms. The problem was making that story feel real rather than like marketing copy. M7 and PDS flew drone teams over Panera’s farms in Yuma, Arizona — capturing aerial content that proved the promise and shipped to screens across America within weeks.
7
Farms Filmed in
2 Days · National TV Placement
What We Built
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) production across 7 Panera farms in 2 days — producing content for social media, digital, and a 30-second national television spot for Panera’s Behind-The-Counter series.
The Result
Content deployed across all Panera channels and aired as a national 30-second TV spot. Authentic proof of the clean ingredient promise — impossible to fake from a camera on the ground.
World First
SNAPCHAT’S FIRST-EVER
HAPTIC SHAKE
Activation.
CHANEL wanted to bring the Alps to Manhattan. The brief: create an experience that let users step into CHANEL’s world and interact with their iconic snow globe — in the Meatpacking District, on a phone, with zero friction. M7 and QReal built it. What nobody had done before: trigger an AR animation with a physical gesture. A world first in luxury brand experience.
The Haptic Shake mechanism was the first time Snapchat’s haptic input had ever been used to trigger an AR animation for a brand. Users shook their phones. The snow globe came to life. CHANEL’s world arrived in New York.
The Challenge
CHANEL’s standard: every touchpoint must feel like CHANEL. An AR experience that felt generic, clunky, or off-brand would be worse than no experience at all. The interaction mechanism had to be elegant, surprising, and worthy of the house.
The M7 Insight
Snow globes are activated by a shake. What if the phone — already in the user’s hand — became the snow globe? The haptic shake was the answer. Elegant, on-brand, and genuinely innovative. Nobody had done it before on Snapchat.
What We Built
An interactive AR experience deployed in CHANEL’s Meatpacking District activation. Users opened Snapchat, pointed their camera at the installation, and shook their phones. CHANEL’s snow globe animation — built with QReal — triggered via haptic input. The world’s first.
Why It Mattered
Not just a brand moment. A new interaction paradigm for luxury AR. The haptic shake mechanism has since influenced how brands think about physical gesture as an AR trigger. CHANEL continues to partner with M7 across four divisions.
1st
Ever haptic-triggered AR animation on Snapchat for a brand — anywhere in the world
8+
Years of ongoing CHANEL partnership spanning four divisions — built on trust, not contracts
The Challenge
Smart home technology is notoriously hard to convey in a showroom setting. Buyers could see the devices but couldn’t feel the intelligence. Pulte needed a way to make the experience of living in a connected home visceral and imaginable — before purchase.
What We Built
A custom Alexa skill built around 300+ custom intents — playfully demonstrating every capability of the Pulte smart home ecosystem, from lighting and security to appliances and energy management. Deployed across the Babcock Ranch development and promoted in partnership with Amazon.
The Result
One of Amazon’s first-ever native brand skills — no third-party invocation required. The Pulte skill responded to the brand name directly, a recognition of the build quality and integration depth that Amazon had not extended to any homebuilder at that point.
300+
Custom voice intents built for a brand-owned Alexa skill — the M7 benchmark
1st
NFC + AR Activations
First 14 Days Post-Launch
Voice Technology
Pulte Homes · Amazon Alexa
7 FARMS.
2 DAYS.
National TV.
Pulte Homes was building Innovation Way at Babcock Ranch — the most connected smart home development in the country. They needed a way to let prospective buyers experience the intelligence of the home before ever walking through the door. M7 built an Alexa skill that didn’t just answer questions — it put the entire Pulte smart home ecosystem at the command of a voice.
The result was one of Amazon’s first-ever “native skills” published for a consumer brand — meaning users didn’t need to invoke a third-party name to activate it. The skill responded directly to the Pulte brand name, a level of integration Amazon had never granted a homebuilder before.
The Origin Story
E*Trade · Voice & AI
THE PITCH
THAT LAUNCHED
M7.
In 2017, Matt Maher — then a cost-center innovation lead at an agency — walked a personalized Alexa flash briefing concept tied to E*Trade’s investment portfolio into a pitch meeting. It went to the head of media. Then the CMO. Then the CEO and CFO. The entire C-suite loved it. Then they asked: “Who are you, and do you work for us?”
That question became the answer. The E*Trade flash briefing was the genesis of M7 Innovations. It proved that the most valuable intelligence wasn’t inside the agency — it was in the gap between technology and business that nobody was filling.
The Insight
E*Trade’s own data showed their top 1% of customers — the whales — checked their money 65 times a day. They were obsessive. A personalized Alexa flash briefing, tied to their portfolio performance, would reach them in a new surface at exactly the moment they were most engaged.
The Build
A personalized voice briefing that pulled real-time portfolio data and delivered it in natural language through Alexa — giving high-value investors their snapshot the moment they woke up. Cutting-edge for 2017. A proof of concept that agencies weren’t built to execute.
Why It Matters
The pitch made it to the C-suite. The C-suite loved it. And then they asked the question that exposed exactly what was missing in the market: a firm that could conceive ideas at the frontier and actually build them. That firm became M7.
“After I did the whole pitch, they said: ‘We love it. Who the hell are you? Do you work for us?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m a low-level at an agency.’ That was my marquee moment.”
— Matt Maher, Founder, M7 Innovations
THE AR TRY-ON THAT
Rewrote Commerce.
COVID eliminated the 60% in-store conversion rate that eyewear brands depended on. Nobody was trying on communal glasses. Virtual try-on was budding — but no one had proven it could actually move sales. M7 built it, launched it, and the results weren’t incremental. They were the only differentiating factor between one year and the next.
456%
YoY Sales Lift
Bollé Nevada Goggles
1st
Award-Winning
AR Try-On of Its Kind
The Challenge
Bollé’s own data showed 60% of in-store goggle purchasers convert after trying on with a sales associate. COVID killed that touchpoint entirely. Online sales dropped. The brand needed a way to replicate the try-on moment — digitally, at scale, and in a way that actually influenced purchase behavior.
The M7 Insight
Virtual try-on was emerging — but it was being applied to clothing, where body geometry makes it nearly impossible to get right. Eyewear and goggles were a different story: face-mapping was accurate, the product was the right scale, and the use case was obvious. M7 saw the window, proposed the build, and took full accountability for the result.
What We Built
An award-winning, immersive AR try-on experience for the Bollé Nevada goggles — breaking down key product features while letting users virtually wear the product before purchasing. Educational. Interactive. The only variable that changed year-over-year.
The Outcome
456% year-over-year sales increase on the singular product. No incremental marketing spend. No new influencer campaign. No new social budget. The only differentiating factor was the AR try-on. Won a Webby Award for Best Use of Filter & Lenses.
World First
SNAPCHAT’S FIRST-EVER
HAPTIC SHAKE
Activation.
CHANEL wanted to bring the Alps to Manhattan. The brief: create an experience that let users step into CHANEL’s world and interact with their iconic snow globe — in the Meatpacking District, on a phone, with zero friction. M7 and QReal built it. What nobody had done before: trigger an AR animation with a physical gesture. A world first in luxury brand experience.
The Haptic Shake mechanism was the first time Snapchat’s haptic input had ever been used to trigger an AR animation for a brand. Users shook their phones. The snow globe came to life. CHANEL’s world arrived in New York.
The Challenge
CHANEL’s standard: every touchpoint must feel like CHANEL. An AR experience that felt generic, clunky, or off-brand would be worse than no experience at all. The interaction mechanism had to be elegant, surprising, and worthy of the house.
The M7 Insight
Snow globes are activated by a shake. What if the phone — already in the user’s hand — became the snow globe? The haptic shake was the answer. Elegant, on-brand, and genuinely innovative. Nobody had done it before on Snapchat.
What We Built
An interactive AR experience deployed in CHANEL’s Meatpacking District activation. Users opened Snapchat, pointed their camera at the installation, and shook their phones. CHANEL’s snow globe animation — built with QReal — triggered via haptic input. The world’s first.
Why It Mattered
Not just a brand moment. A new interaction paradigm for luxury AR. The haptic shake mechanism has since influenced how brands think about physical gesture as an AR trigger. CHANEL continues to partner with M7 across four divisions.
1st
Ever haptic-triggered AR animation on Snapchat for a brand — anywhere in the world
8+
Years of ongoing CHANEL partnership spanning four divisions — built on trust, not contracts
The Challenge
Smart home technology is notoriously hard to convey in a showroom setting. Buyers could see the devices but couldn’t feel the intelligence. Pulte needed a way to make the experience of living in a connected home visceral and imaginable — before purchase.
What We Built
A custom Alexa skill built around 300+ custom intents — playfully demonstrating every capability of the Pulte smart home ecosystem, from lighting and security to appliances and energy management. Deployed across the Babcock Ranch development and promoted in partnership with Amazon.
The Result
One of Amazon’s first-ever native brand skills — no third-party invocation required. The Pulte skill responded to the brand name directly, a recognition of the build quality and integration depth that Amazon had not extended to any homebuilder at that point.
300+
Custom voice intents built for a brand-owned Alexa skill — the M7 benchmark
1st
Native Alexa skill for a residential homebuilder — Amazon partnership recognition
Voice Technology
Pulte Homes · Amazon Alexa
AMAZON’S FIRST
NATIVE BRAND
Skill.
Pulte Homes was building Innovation Way at Babcock Ranch — the most connected smart home development in the country. They needed a way to let prospective buyers experience the intelligence of the home before ever walking through the door. M7 built an Alexa skill that didn’t just answer questions — it put the entire Pulte smart home ecosystem at the command of a voice.
The result was one of Amazon’s first-ever “native skills” published for a consumer brand — meaning users didn’t need to invoke a third-party name to activate it. The skill responded directly to the Pulte brand name, a level of integration Amazon had never granted a homebuilder before.
The Origin Story
E*Trade · Voice & AI
THE PITCH
THAT LAUNCHED
M7.
In 2017, Matt Maher — then a cost-center innovation lead at an agency — walked a personalized Alexa flash briefing concept tied to E*Trade’s investment portfolio into a pitch meeting. It went to the head of media. Then the CMO. Then the CEO and CFO. The entire C-suite loved it. Then they asked: “Who are you, and do you work for us?”
That question became the answer. The E*Trade flash briefing was the genesis of M7 Innovations. It proved that the most valuable intelligence wasn’t inside the agency — it was in the gap between technology and business that nobody was filling.
The Insight
E*Trade’s own data showed their top 1% of customers — the whales — checked their money 65 times a day. They were obsessive. A personalized Alexa flash briefing, tied to their portfolio performance, would reach them in a new surface at exactly the moment they were most engaged.
The Build
A personalized voice briefing that pulled real-time portfolio data and delivered it in natural language through Alexa — giving high-value investors their snapshot the moment they woke up. Cutting-edge for 2017. A proof of concept that agencies weren’t built to execute.
Why It Matters
The pitch made it to the C-suite. The C-suite loved it. And then they asked the question that exposed exactly what was missing in the market: a firm that could conceive ideas at the frontier and actually build them. That firm became M7.
“After I did the whole pitch, they said: ‘We love it. Who the hell are you? Do you work for us?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m a low-level at an agency.’ That was my marquee moment.”
— Matt Maher, Founder, M7 Innovations
Drone Technology
Panera Bread
7 FARMS.
2 DAYS.
National TV.
Panera had a powerful story to tell: 100% clean ingredients, sourced from real farms. The problem was making that story feel real rather than like marketing copy. M7 and PDS flew drone teams over Panera’s farms in Yuma, Arizona — capturing aerial content that proved the promise and shipped to screens across America within weeks.
7
Farms Filmed in
2 Days · National TV Placement
What We Built
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) production across 7 Panera farms in 2 days — producing content for social media, digital, and a 30-second national television spot for Panera’s Behind-The-Counter series.
The Result
Content deployed across all Panera channels and aired as a national 30-second TV spot. Authentic proof of the clean ingredient promise — impossible to fake from a camera on the ground.
NFC + IoT
80,000 ACTIVATIONS
IN 14 Days.
Construction sites are notoriously bad at community communication. Neighbors don’t know what’s being built, timelines slip without explanation, and goodwill erodes. Suffolk partnered with M7 to merge the physical site experience with a living digital layer — using NFC and AR to give passersby something they’d never had before: a window into the build, on demand, from the sidewalk.
80,000
NFC + AR Activations
First 14 Days Post-Launch
What We Built
NFC-powered activations at job-site fencing — tap your phone, enter the AR experience. Community members could see the building progress, access project information, and engage with the build from the street. No app download required.
The Result
80,000 activations in the first two weeks. The client had never seen engagement at that scale from a physical installation. Now a repeatable model for community engagement across Suffolk’s national portfolio.
World First
SNAPCHAT’S FIRST-EVER
HAPTIC SHAKE
Activation.
CHANEL wanted to bring the Alps to Manhattan. The brief: create an experience that let users step into CHANEL’s world and interact with their iconic snow globe — in the Meatpacking District, on a phone, with zero friction. M7 and QReal built it. What nobody had done before: trigger an AR animation with a physical gesture. A world first in luxury brand experience.
The Haptic Shake mechanism was the first time Snapchat’s haptic input had ever been used to trigger an AR animation for a brand. Users shook their phones. The snow globe came to life. CHANEL’s world arrived in New York.
The Challenge
CHANEL’s standard: every touchpoint must feel like CHANEL. An AR experience that felt generic, clunky, or off-brand would be worse than no experience at all. The interaction mechanism had to be elegant, surprising, and worthy of the house.
The M7 Insight
Snow globes are activated by a shake. What if the phone — already in the user’s hand — became the snow globe? The haptic shake was the answer. Elegant, on-brand, and genuinely innovative. Nobody had done it before on Snapchat.
What We Built
An interactive AR experience deployed in CHANEL’s Meatpacking District activation. Users opened Snapchat, pointed their camera at the installation, and shook their phones. CHANEL’s snow globe animation — built with QReal — triggered via haptic input. The world’s first.
Why It Mattered
Not just a brand moment. A new interaction paradigm for luxury AR. The haptic shake mechanism has since influenced how brands think about physical gesture as an AR trigger. CHANEL continues to partner with M7 across four divisions.
1st
Ever haptic-triggered AR animation on Snapchat for a brand — anywhere in the world
8+
Years of ongoing CHANEL partnership spanning four divisions — built on trust, not contracts
The Origin Story
E*Trade · Voice & AI
THE PITCH
THAT LAUNCHED
M7.
In 2017, Matt Maher — then a cost-center innovation lead at an agency — walked a personalized Alexa flash briefing concept tied to E*Trade’s investment portfolio into a pitch meeting. It went to the head of media. Then the CMO. Then the CEO and CFO. The entire C-suite loved it. Then they asked: “Who are you, and do you work for us?”
That question became the answer. The E*Trade flash briefing was the genesis of M7 Innovations. It proved that the most valuable intelligence wasn’t inside the agency — it was in the gap between technology and business that nobody was filling.
The Insight
E*Trade’s own data showed their top 1% of customers — the whales — checked their money 65 times a day. They were obsessive. A personalized Alexa flash briefing, tied to their portfolio performance, would reach them in a new surface at exactly the moment they were most engaged.
The Build
A personalized voice briefing that pulled real-time portfolio data and delivered it in natural language through Alexa — giving high-value investors their snapshot the moment they woke up. Cutting-edge for 2017. A proof of concept that agencies weren’t built to execute.
Why It Matters
The pitch made it to the C-suite. The C-suite loved it. And then they asked the question that exposed exactly what was missing in the market: a firm that could conceive ideas at the frontier and actually build them. That firm became M7.
“After I did the whole pitch, they said: ‘We love it. Who the hell are you? Do you work for us?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m a low-level at an agency.’ That was my marquee moment.”
— Matt Maher, Founder, M7 Innovations
February 2025 · Official Announcement
NAMED
MIT MEDIA
LAB Partner.
In February 2025, M7 Innovations was named the 36th Official Partner of the MIT Media Lab Consortium — joining a global network of organizations at the absolute frontier of technology research, human-computer interaction, and innovation. One of only 36 organizations selected worldwide. The partnership provides M7 with direct access to MIT research data that flows into every keynote, every engagement, and every strategic recommendation the firm makes.
36th
Official partner selected worldwide — one of 36 organizations at the frontier of technology research
Feb 2025
Official announcement — M7 joins the MIT Media Lab Consortium as an active research partner
Direct
Research data access — the MIT signal feeds directly into M7’s Intelligence Engine and every client engagement
Global
Network of scientists, PhDs, and researchers at the absolute frontier of human knowledge — available to M7 clients
Technology Capabilities
EVERY FRONTIER.
All Built.
M7 deploys across every major frontier technology — not as theorists, but as builders who have shipped real work across all eight verticals.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI-first strategy, GenAI integration, LLM and GEO consulting, and custom model development for brand-specific applications.
Case: E*Trade Voice AI · Ongoing: CHANEL, Cox Automotive
AR / VR / MIXED REALITY
Award-winning immersive experiences — from AR retail try-ons to enterprise mixed reality activations and Snapchat-first innovations.
Case: Bollé AR · CHANEL Haptic · Suffolk NFC-AR
VOICE TECHNOLOGY
Native brand skills and voice-activated experiences for Alexa, Google Assistant, and ambient computing — including Amazon’s first native brand skill.
Case: Pulte Homes Native Skill · E*Trade Flash Briefing
IoT & PHYSICAL AI
Connected device ecosystems and sensor-driven experiences that bridge the digital and physical — NFC activations, smart home, and beyond.
Case: Suffolk NFC · Pulte Smart Home
DRONE TECHNOLOGY
Aerial content production and drone-based data capture for agricultural, commercial, and media projects — including national TV placements.
Case: Panera 7 Farms · National TV Content
WEB3 & NFC
Token-gated experiences, NFT strategy, and NFC-powered physical activations — driving measurable engagement between digital and physical worlds.
Case: Suffolk NFC + AR · Ongoing: Web3 advisory
GAMING & ESPORTS
Brand integrations, in-game activations, and community strategy across the gaming and esports ecosystem. The new living room, mall, and arena.
Speaking: CES · Brand Innovators · Ubisoft
EMERGING MEDIA
Platform-first content strategy for what’s next: spatial computing, haptics, AI-first search, agentic AI, and whatever comes after that.
Ongoing: CHANEL · Dentsu · Cox Automotive
How We Work
FROM BRIEF
TO Shipped.
Every M7 engagement follows the same four-step process. The timelines vary. The rigor doesn’t. We don’t leave until there’s something real to show for it.
01
DISCOVER THE TENSION
We start by understanding the real problem — not the stated brief. Qualitative interviews with key stakeholders, a review of what’s been tried and why it didn’t work, and an honest assessment of where the organization’s readiness actually is.
02
MAP THE OPPORTUNITY
M7 applies its four-signal intelligence framework — MIT data, startup roadmaps, Fortune 500 signals, and hardware testing — to identify where the technology intersects with the business problem in a way that’s actionable now, not in three years.
03
BUILD AND DEPLOY
We build. A prototype, a proof-of-concept, or a full deployment — depending on what the engagement calls for. M7 has shipped across eight technology verticals for clients ranging from luxury fashion houses to enterprise construction firms. The work on this page is proof.
04
CRAWL-WALK-RUN
Nothing M7 delivers ends with a handoff. Every engagement closes with a staged action plan — what to do in the next 30 days, the next 90 days, and the next year. Many clients stay on as retainer partners because the roadmap doesn’t end when the project does.
Organizations M7 Has Built For
- Amazon
- CHANEL
- Panera Bread
- Bollé Brands
- Cox Automotive
- Harvard Medical
- Suffolk Construction
- Pulte Homes
- E*Trade
- Dentsu
- Spy Optic
- Glimpse Group
Start a Project
YOUR PROJECT
COULD BE
Next.
Every case study on this page began with a conversation. Tell us what you’re trying to build — or what problem you’re trying to solve. M7 will tell you honestly whether we’re the right firm for it, and what the engagement would look like.
456%
YoY sales growth — Bollé Nevada AR try-on. The only variable that changed.
80K
NFC activations in 14 days — Suffolk Construction community engagement.
1st
Haptic AR trigger on Snapchat — CHANEL, Meatpacking District. World first.
300+
Custom voice intents — Pulte Homes native Alexa skill. Amazon’s first for a homebuilder.
36th
MIT Media Lab partner — Feb 2025. One of 36 organizations worldwide.