The convergence of advancements in virtual technologies, multimodal learning, music generation, and audio-visual research is reshaping the landscape of immersive and interactive experiences. A common thread across these areas is the integration of innovative models and frameworks to enhance cross-modal interactions and create more contextualized, embodied, and scalable solutions. In cultural heritage, the use of Audio Augmented Reality (AAR) and 3D modeling is revolutionizing how artifacts are preserved and presented, fostering more engaging and exploratory visitor experiences. Similarly, in multimodal learning, the development of unified frameworks and novel architectures is improving the robustness and efficiency of large language models, particularly in handling continuous and discrete data modalities. Music generation is benefiting from transformer-based models and comprehensive datasets, enabling more diverse and high-quality outputs, while new evaluation metrics are providing deeper insights into the quality of generated music. Audio-visual research is pushing the boundaries of cross-modal interactions through self-supervised learning and advanced neural models, enhancing tasks such as sonification, music-video retrieval, and binaural audio synthesis. Notable innovations include zero-shot learning for binaural audio synthesis and multi-modal chain-of-thought controls in sound generation models. These advancements collectively highlight a shift towards more sophisticated, generalized, and user-centric solutions, with significant implications for various sectors, from education and entertainment to cultural preservation and beyond.