Watch ‘The Power of Digital Twins’

Welcome to the Age of Digital Twins

We have long harnessed tools to understand and navigate the world, from ancient nautical instruments to detailed architectural models and computer-generated designs. These tools have evolved alongside and propelled forward our increasingly complex civilisations.

Today, digital twins represent the next step in that continuum. From immersive experience design to cutting-edge urban developments and next-gen theme parks, digital twins are transforming how we design, optimize, and experience the world around us.

“The future won’t be built once and left to run. It will be modelled, tested, tweaked, and lived through twins.”

But what is a digital twin?

At their core, digital twins are data-driven virtual copies of physical places and spaces that respond to real-world conditions in real-time. Twins aren’t just beautiful 3D models; they enable better decision-making by providing a virtual testing ground where teams can communicate ideas and simulate outcomes before committing to costly real-world implementations.

Today, we’ll explore five applications of twins that are unlocking new dimensions of world-building across the industry spectrum.

1. Getting the Built Environment off the ground

The disconnect between design, construction, and sales has long hindered real estate development, with architects and developers struggling to align on a shared vision, and marketing teams left relying on outdated renders and uninspiring sales suites. Poor communication at this stage isn’t just inefficient, it risks alienating communities, frustrating local governments, and losing buyers before the project gets off the ground. 

This is where a digital twin steps in: a single, multipurpose tool that supports every phase of development, adds value throughout, and ultimately helps ensure the project gets built. 

First step, the architect translates their designs, aided by a video game engine, into an interactive 3D model of the master plan. This interactive model is shared with developers and designers to collaboratively explore, tweak, and align on every detail of the development before a single brick is laid.

At Here East London, a twin showcases the masterplan from street view to bird’s-eye, or even as a video game–style walkthrough. It can be taken anywhere, using a laptop and a VR headset to immerse potential tenants with minimal setup.

Once the vision is clear, you need to sell it, not just to investors, but also to local government, community groups, and partners. In Magna, Utah, planners utilize a digital twin of the historic downtown area to demonstrate how new developments will blend with historic architecture, thereby securing support from all stakeholders before breaking ground.

Now you bring it to market, but not using flat renders and stiff sales brochures. Digital twins transform developments into explorable, living models, allowing tenants and buyers to experience a property from any angle, day or night.

The twin can be integrated into a next-gen sales suite to walk stakeholders through the development in a visceral and immersive setting. AIRSIDE in Hong Kong is a striking example. 

This cinematic-scale digital twin of a planned development, controlled via touchscreen, empowers potential tenants to explore the architecture and its connection to the neighbourhood’s history, transforming an abstract plan into something tangible and persuasive. 

2. Digital Twins are transforming entertainment

Now let’s imagine what twins could do for the world of entertainment… 

Take theme parks, for example. With digital twins, designers can step into their creations before they’re built, testing viewpoints, ride experiences, and visitor flow from multiple perspectives. Will a child see key wayfinding signs? Will someone in a wheelchair have an equally seamless journey? Digital twins provide answers before these questions become problems.

Disney is already using digital twins both to simulate potential faults and plan proactive maintenance, and to facilitate entire experiences: “Luminous: The Symphony of Us” at Disney World Orlando was brought to life using digital twins to simulate and synchronise every element from fireworks and fountains to lighting and audio, ensuring a 360° experience across the EPCOT Lagoon.

When designing these kinds of experiences in the wider world, digital twins empower design teams to simulate the visitor’s perspective, allowing them to adjust immersive content and exhibition layouts in real time, collaboratively and iteratively with the client. 

The Empire State Building Observatory was an early adopter of digital twins for visitor experience optimization. The twin was initially used to plan basic media placements and layouts, but quickly evolved as a tool for testing and refining the visitor journey. Seeing the space in 3D helped the client make faster, smarter design decisions in ways that 2D plans never could. 

For the Peak Tram in Hong Kong, a Twin allowed us to design and review a 30-foot immersive woodland landscape with great precision, crucial at that scale. The same model was later used to model visitor flows and capacity, enabling the tram team to plan its operations and manage crowds effectively. 

3. Twins are supercharging retail and industry 

Start-ups, scale-ups, and even global brands are discovering that digital twins aren’t just for architects and designers; they’re powerful tools for business growth.

Retail giant Walmart is rolling out digital twins across select stores to refine facility operations. The Twins have already identified over 800 potential failures and saved $1.4 million in downtime costs within just six months. 

In the future, Walmart’s digital twins could go beyond operations, optimising everything from product placement to customer flow. Want to know if shoppers are missing key promotions, or if a new aisle layout creates bottlenecks? A twin can test it all virtually, before a single shelf is moved. 

In manufacturing, BMW is using digital twins to create a real-time, 3D replica of its Regensburg factory—right down to the machinery, workflows, and even workers. The twin, based on NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform, enables teams to visualize and coordinate operations in a shared virtual environment, allowing for smarter planning, streamlined training, and a clearer understanding of how every part of the production line fits together.

These companies treat the digital twin not as a one-off visualisation, but as a core part of their business infrastructure. A constantly evolving source of insight that helps them stay agile, efficient, and one step ahead of the game… 

4. Scaling Up: Digital Twins at City & National Levels

Now, if we take the concept of the twin to its extreme, we can explore how they can be used, at city-wide, regional, and even global scales … 

Digital twins aren’t just for buildings anymore; they’re scaling up, fast. Entire cities, infrastructure networks, and even nations are being modelled in real time, unlocking tremendous opportunities for urban planning, community collaboration, and climate resilience.

Take Virtual Singapore, the world’s first national digital twin, which is used across sectors and supports everything from emergency response and mobile network coverage to neighbourhood upgrades, allowing citizens to co-design local improvements, such as parks or HDB colour schemes.

In the U.S., the Orlando Regional Digital Twin employs a similar approach, mapping 800 square miles of the region, including 40 square miles in high fidelity, to support economic development, urban planning, and informed investment decisions. Built in partnership with Unity, it enables companies, local governments, and communities to layer in real-time data to explore infrastructure, traffic patterns, and talent flow. 

We created a digital twin of the entire Trojena region in Tabuk Province, Saudi Arabia, which goes far beyond being a planning tool. Built in Unreal Engine, the Trojena twin lets designers and future visitors step inside a fully immersive version of the expansive destination, whether that’s skiing down mountain slopes or sailing across a lakeside resort.

It’s a versatile tool that’s already proving its worth. We even used the twin as a backdrop on a virtual production stage to create stunning films that bring the vision for the region to life.

Looking forward, as efforts like NVIDIA’s Omniverse and the EU’s Destination Earth initiative gather pace, expect to see more decentralised, federated models, where different stakeholders can plug in, contribute, and draw insights without being locked into a siloed organisational twin.

5. Predicting the future and securing the present: Real-time twins 

So, what happens when your project is built? The ribbon’s been cut, the doors are open. Surely the digital twin has done its job? Not quite.

Real-time digital twins are living simulations that continue after construction, utilizing live data to monitor, predict, and optimize everything from building performance to city infrastructure, transforming static assets into dynamic, responsive systems. 

This concept is already being applied across the industry spectrum.

In real estate, the twin keeps working to improve efficiency and assist with operations. The retrofitted Keppel Bay Tower in Singapore utilized a digital twin to monitor real-time energy performance and enable predictive maintenance, resulting in a 30% reduction in energy use and a corresponding decrease in operational costs.

In retail, Lowe’s built twins of their stores to visualise layouts, track stock, and guide staff through daily operations. Associates can walk through a virtual replica of the store, find the fastest route to a product, or see which shelves need restocking. 

On the factory floor, Siemens is using real-time twins to model entire production lines. Machines talk to each other, predict wear and tear, and adjust workflows on the fly. It means fewer shutdowns, smarter scheduling, and better safety, without lifting a spanner.

In cities like Houston, digital twins are managing infrastructure in real-time. The public works team monitors water flow, predicts pipe failures, and optimises repairs, all through a live model of the city’s distribution network. 

Each of these examples shows that digital twins aren’t just one-and-done visualisations. They evolve with the systems they mirror, learning, adapting, and improving over time. As we build more connected and intelligent environments, these real-time twins will serve as the ‘digital brain’ underpinning operations.

Twins: the final frontier. 

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt in these five examples, it’s that digital twins are not just tools; they’re a new dimension to understanding the world around us. 

They offer us a way to rehearse reality before we live it, to test possibilities before committing to them, and to respond to challenges with greater intelligence and intention. 

Digital Twins are transforming a wide range of industries and organizations, and Journey’s approach at the intersection of technology and creativity drives digital transformations for our clients and partners. It’s a critical part of our work and is at the foundation of our approach to multidimensional experience design.

– Michael Stein, CTO, Journey.

We’re only beginning to see what digital twins can do. From designing earthquake-resistant buildings that survive ten virtual quakes before they’re even built, to awe-inspiring immersive exhibitions and even personalised healthcare powered by a digital twin of yourself, this technology is transforming how we engage with the spaces and systems that shape our lives.

The future won’t be built once and left to run. It will be modelled, tested, tweaked, and lived through twins. But like any meaningful design shift, this can’t just be about technology. Twins offer a portal to a better future, but only if we use them with foresight, empathy, and care to connect people, communicate culture, and better serve the community.