How will Businesses Make Use of Virtual and Augmented Reality in the Coming Years?

Some of the most interesting buzzwords to hit the market over the last couple of years have been prevailing for decades. Artificial intelligence, which has been influencing every industry of late, has been around for over 5 decades.

Yes, it was in 1956 that the concept of machine intelligence was thought about and the term artificial intelligence was coined. Similarly, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are two disruptive technologies that have been fetching adoptions and interests of companies across the globe.

While these still appear to be futuristic and straight out of science fiction movies, these technologies are over 30 years old. They are buzzwords today because of the tremendous development we have had in terms of data generation, storage and processing capabilities. Today’s wearable devices, computing power, the internet and hardware components substantially support the implementation of these technologies across a number of purposes and industries.

In the last few years, the reach of both augmented reality and virtual reality has been so significant that this industry is anticipated to become a $200bn industry by 2022. This year alone, over 14 million VR and AR devices are expected to be sold. This is apart from the fact that there are over 171 million users of this technology worldwide. While the most common application of these technologies have been in gaming and entertainment, VR and AR are finding increased adoption across healthcare, defence and real estate as well.

Before we get into the specifics of how the future looks for AR and VR, let’s get that hazy cloud of misconceptions around them cleared and understand better about what these two technologies are and how they’ve been applied in real life so far.

Virtual Reality is where only you are the real entity. Whatever you see in the environment you are present in is computer generated. This includes any image, character or door you interact with. The idea of VR is to simulate a real experience virtually through the use of special headsets and wearables.

They’re being increasingly used by B2B industries to offer more engagement to their potential customers, in military, aviation and defence for training purposes, in healthcare for improving surgeon training and more.

If virtual reality is all about creating an artificial environment, augmented reality is all about using the real environment to offer you interactive services and information. If you’ve used any of the filters from Snapchat or Instagram – like the popular dog filters – you’ve already experienced augmented reality.

Pokemon Go is one of the best examples of augmented reality, where computer generated characters from the popular franchise pop into your camera view when you place it on real-world environments.

One of the first promising instances of how these two technology will evolve lies in the fact that they will move beyond gaming and entertainment industries. The growth of these technologies look substantial and they are anticipated to find applications in industries like:

• Corporate
• Real estate
• Education
• Healthcare

While it’s a known statistic that corporate companies spend a significant amount of time and money in training employees. Virtual reality development will enable companies to offer wearables to potential candidates for interviews and training purposes after on boarding and for meetings. This technology will allow employees to focus more on their work without having to dedicate additional time on training new recruits or conducting interviews.

Besides, corporate will also find new and unique ways to use both AR and VR to engage with customers. For the uninitiated, VR marketing is already a trend today and companies like Nippon Airways and Nissan are using VR to offer a glimpse into their airliners and cars virtually. As the technology becomes more accessible, we would see aspiring companies joining this bandwagon as well.

One of the major advancements in VR and real estate would be the recreation of potential houses in 3D. Customers who are interested in buying new properties would be able to have a peek inside their houses using VR before they’re constructed. They could also visualize any preferences they would have in terms of their construction and see them in real time. VR would let them view from wherever they are without making them actually visit a property.

AR can be put to good use in education through augmented reality app development. With educational apps, students can use their phones and cameras, point them to specific sections of their textbooks or study materials and get access to tons of complementary information like question banks, additional content, videos, graphics, images and more. VR will also bridge the gap between distance and classroom learning apart from offering additional interactive experiences like mock examinations and presentations.

Healthcare is one of the more crucial fields AR and VR will work their magic in the next 10 to 15 years. With surgeons already undergoing VR training to perform complex surgeries, this technology will also foster a better and more private environments for psychological therapies. Besides, AR will also be used to check the authenticity of medicines and tablets and separate originals from their counterfeit counterparts.

Whenever topics like AI, VR and AR crop up, there’s a sense of negativity attached to them. They are seen more as doomsday inducing entities than beneficial antidotes. We still have years to actually get hands on with VR devices you get to see on Black Mirror. VR and AR are undergoing tremendous progress and day’s companies start using them for their benefits aren’t too far.

And if you don’t intend to be late for the party, we suggest you start thinking about implementing VR and AR technologies for your business. If you’re unsure how to get started, get in touch with us. We are a virtual and augmented reality app development company who would help you get an idea of the bigger picture and position your brand better in terms of tech adoption.