Ephemeral artificial reality experiences

In one embodiment, a method includes instructing sensors on an AR headset to capture data of a real-world environment, discovering a 3D location where a native application configured to run natively on an operating system is downloadable, generating and displaying a virtual object representing the native application at the 3D location, detecting a user of the AR system interacting with the virtual object, downloading a first executable portion of the native application, executing the first executable portion within a sandbox process having a predetermined set of access permissions, progressively downloading a remaining executable portion of the native application while the user is interacting with the executed first executable portion, and in response to a determination that the native application is completely downloaded, installing the native application on the operating system.