AR and VR Set to Change Business

Although yet to reach mainstream adoption it is clear that Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) will have a major impact to the way businesses are run. With highly practical applications across many industries, it will be interesting to see how businesses evolve with this new form of visualisation capabilities.  

Augmented Reality (AR) is described as a “type of interactive, reality-based display environment that takes the capabilities of computer-generated display, sound, text and effect to enhance the users real-world experience”. The difference between AR and VR is that the participant that interacts with VR is immersed in a completely virtually created world with no outside interaction. This experience can be used to better understand unique processes within a business or have clearer visualisations of some of the work that needs to be done.  AR has seamless applications to devices such as smartphones or tablets and brings with it many possibilities.  

With the viral success of Pokemon Go the world got its first taste of just how transformative and infectious AR functionality can be. Millions took to the streets as they downloaded the Pokemon Go app which allowed users, via AR technology, to locate Pokemon via their phone often journeying to different locations to catch their favourites. This level of nostalgia mixed with innovative technology and high levels of interactions made for a great introduction into the possible scope of AR and resulted in 752 million downloads and revenue of $1.2 Billion.  

With a report stating that 82% of companies currently implementing AR/VR say the benefits are meeting or exceeding their expectations, shows the impact that those already implementing AR systems are getting from the technology. Of course, this is highly lucrative in certain fields with a study showing that 35% of Architects are using one form of mixed, AR, VR or more and plan to expand their usage.  

These innovations will be continually supported by cloud services like Microsoft Azure which is being used by the majority of companies.  There are set to be around 1 billion users of Augmented Reality by 2020 with the market figure to reach $61.39 Billion USD by 2023.   

Microsoft have already begin to implement their own solutions with their own mixed reality applications for Microsoft Dynamics taking advantage of the new innovation opportunities AR has to offer.  
 
Is Augmented Reality something you can implement in your business to become more efficient or expand the possibilities for your workforce?  
 
Be on the forefront of the next technological evolution and consider how these innovations can help all areas of your business.  

To find out more about how to use IT to improve your business contact Advantage today.   

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