IAMF: Immersive Audio for a New Decade
When AOMedia introduced the Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF) in late 2023, it marked a decisive step into the next frontier of media: sound that doesn’t just accompany visuals but envelops the listener entirely.
“IAMF is designed to make immersive audio scalable, flexible, and open,” said Thomas Daede, Principal Video Engineer at Vimeo and co-chair of the AOMedia Storage and Transport Formats Working Group (STFWG), which oversees IAMF’s advancement. “It supports ambisonics and complex multi-channel speaker layouts in a single file, so creators can deliver rich 3D sound that adapts to virtually any playback setup.”
Two years in, IAMF is moving steadily from specification to real-world adoption — with early support from industry leaders, new creator tools, and of course a lot of hard work by the members of its AOMedia working group.
“We’re building IAMF to scale — not just technically, but practically,” said Thomas Daede. “It’s flexible enough to serve everything from VR and 360 video to mobile apps and home theater, all while remaining open and vendor-neutral. It’s about giving creators and devices the freedom to render sound in truly dynamic ways.”
A Practical Path to Immersive Sound
IMF’s promise is straightforward: universal, immersive audio for everything from VR to next-generation streaming. For developers, it means a single audio file can serve vastly different playback scenarios — headphones, soundbars, full theater setups — with no loss of detail or fidelity.
The format’s versatility is reflected in who’s backing it. Google and Samsung have championed IAMF under the “Eclipsa Audio” brand, showcasing its potential at industry events like NAB. For developers, a key milestone this year was the release of an open-source digital audio workstation (DAW) plugin that lets audio creators export directly to the IAMF format — a crucial bridge from experimental demos to production workflows. (You can find additional details about Eclipsa Audio and DAW on Google’s blog.)
Where It’s Being Heard
While IAMF is newer than AVIF, the STFWG’s other key standard, early signs point to a healthy trajectory. Samsung has announced select TVs supporting IAMF playback, and public demos in Chrome help push the format into web applications. Eclipsa Audio highlights IAMF’s power in 360-degree video and virtual reality environments where audio must adapt in real time to head tracking and speaker setups.
This flexibility makes IAMF especially suited for VR experiences, immersive 360 video, and premium home theater audio. “A single audio track can target both headphones, a cell phone speaker, or a high-end sound bar,” said Daede. “It’s a way to deliver immersive audio to everyone — not just the few with exotic gear.”
The Road Ahead
The core promise of IAMF is to make immersive audio open and accessible. As the community refines tools and improves compression, the format is positioned to scale. “We’d like to see it more widespread,” said Daede. “Better creator tools, broader support in playback devices — that’s what will push it forward.”
For an industry eager to expand how stories are heard as much as how they’re seen, IAMF’s open standard approach offers a practical foundation. It ensures immersive audio can become a baseline feature, not a walled-garden luxury.
AOMedia at 10: Open, Practical, Ready for More
As AOMedia marks its first decade, AVIF and IAMF show how open standards keep media innovation moving forward — smaller files, richer visuals, and more immersive sound, all delivered in ways that work across the devices people already have. Backed by many experienced engineers, and by major players including Google, Samsung, and Vimeo, both formats are poised to grow — helping define what the next decade of streaming, sharing, and storytelling looks and sounds like.