Augmented reality can and already has vastly improved business functions today.
Augmented reality’s developments can bring a lot of benefits and change the world.
Augmented reality, a concept that once seemed to have only existed in sci-fi, had developed into reality (pun intended). In the past few years, our world has seen the growth of this technology and the potential it holds. Essentially, augmented reality is the technology that integrates digital information with real world environments in real time by overlaying the digital aspect over the real. The term was coined in the 1990s to describe a wearable headset that technicians used to assemble wiring harnesses, but the technology has since grown significantly. Today, you can find devices such as the Google glass, windshields that project information for drivers and much more!
It is without question that augmented reality has seen great development in the past few years. According to a Digi-Capital report, the augmented reality market is supposed to grow up to $150 billion by 2020, showing how much more growth there could be. In addition, a Juniper report suggest that the business world is looking to invest about $2.4 billion into the industry, showing that augmented reality will slowly be integrated further into our society, and there is good reason for it. Augmented reality can bring a lot of benefits to industries around the world. Here are the advantages of augmented reality:
Object Visualization
In its core, augmented reality integrates the digital world with the physical. In this alone, many industries have already been reaping this advantage. In commerce, especially fashion and clothing, companies now have the technology to vastly improve their customer experience, whether it may be online or offline. For example, IKEA was able to implement a great AR strategy that allowed consumers to place home furniture and other products in their own home. This app gave consumers better insight on whether or not the products fit in their homes and revolutionized the consumer experience.
Training and Education
AR technology’s digital and real world integration can strongly benefit training and education and hold limitless possibilities. With the headsets being able to recognize environments and objects, businesses can leverage real time information to help their employees with training. For example, ISS has used AR technology to teach their astronauts how to maintain and repair space stations. By leveraging Microsoft’s HoloLens, these space men can train to experience what it could be like working in space. This technology can also help on job as information is streamed onto their glasses, they would have more mobility to work with what’s on hand.
This technology can also teach companies a lot of things as well. Imagine combining machine learning with AR headsets. Workers can wear these headsets on the job and the machine learning aspect can show businesses where they can improve the process down the line.
Productivity
Augmented reality can definitely help businesses improve their workflow and processes, especially in factories. With AR, managers can potentially see the progress of projects, which can greatly help streamline the process. Workers can also benefit from this technology as well. With headsets on, workers can be warned of potential dangers as well as have pieces of equipment and resources identified quicker.
Customer Service
Augmented reality technology can greatly improve customer service as it can help improve the customer experience. In health care, doctors and healthcare practitioners can use AR headsets to diagnose and pull customer information to vastly improve the visit.
