The Potential of Augmented Reality in Business

What is Augmented Reality?

An interactive experience or technology that superimposes computer generated information on a user’s view of the real world. The information could probably be an audio, video, a still image or any other form of digital information which can be sensed by the human brain, thus providing a composite view. ‘Augmented Reality’ alters the perception of the brain by showing an amalgam of real world and computer generated world”.

Back in 2017 both the technology giants Apple & Google launched their AR based tools for developers to create mobile apps like – ARKit for iOS and ARCore for android. Since then the usage of augmented reality has grown, thereby allowing the consumersto visualize the products and experience what it might feel like in real. They get to experience the services or products before purchasing them in real. Due to it’s applications in the expansion of business and economical in nature the demand and investment in augmented reality has increased drastically.

The Evolution of Augmented Reality

The popular mobile game Pokémon GO which took over the summer of 2016 by storm, was a breakthrough in the mobile gaming industry and became one of the most popular U.S. mobile gaming apps. However even after 2 years it is speculated that it is still making USD$ 2 million daily! The success of the app clearly depicted the potential of AR and the affinity of the customer towards it. According to a recent market research augmented reality technology could hit the USD$150 billion mark by the end of 2020.

Augmented Reality being a rapidly evolving technology, majority of the businesses are shifting their concerns towards creating more interactive AR apps, by giving access to powerful frameworks, to their developers.

Let me take you through some of the projected industries that have already adapted this technology or are in the process of implementation:

Potential in Healthcare Industry

There are some very exciting AR environments in the healthcare industry that would help the practitioners to train themselves in telemedicine and to interact with their patients.

The technology also helps the surgeons to go through a virtual procedure before performing the actual precised operations and can give a clearer picture of the disease / problem. According to several reports the future of augmented reality promises to transform the conventional business models drastically.

Building processes in manufacturing industries can be facilitated and accelerated by the Augmented Reality process. The progress can be monitored in real time with the help of AR enabled devices. Fieldbit is one of the leading developers of Augmented Reality collaboration solutions and has helped various companies by deploying smart glasses. It helps field engineers to obtain real time help from vendors across the globe.

Impact on Education Industry

Maximum momentum would be gained by the medical education, wherein the AR devices would help the medical experts to have an augmented preview of the illness, as discussed above in the case of healthcare industry. The technology will inevitably be transforming the global educational scenario and modernizing it by making classes more engaged and accessible, thereby providing new ways to study.

Augmented Reality in Social Media

Some of the latest implementations of AR in social media platforms are – Facebook AR Studio. This tool is for budding artists and developers who wanted to develop their personalized and interactive Facebook camera experiences. Soon this will also give them similar access to other popular Facebook products such as Instagram and Facebook Messenger. The social media advertisers will definitely use this technology to develop apt content for the markets and will reap maximum profit from their investments.

Scope in Fashion Industry

The fashion and retail industry has been transformed in multifold with augmented reality taking the lead. From providing all round assistance to both offline and online users, to helping them choose the most suited apparel, AR has taken the fashion industry with a storm. Several apparel giants are allowing their customers to scan their product to perform various functions such as size availability, color and reviews (if any). This has helped in raising the customer satisfaction level and the sales figures greatly.

With the above reads we are now clear about the potential of augmented reality in business and marketing. The technology will definitely create a buzz and will help you to acquire new customers. In other words, earlier your business adapts to the AR technology, earlier the upper hand your get over your competitors. Let’s take a closer look at some of the benefits of augmented reality:

• Technology is unique and noticeable
• Increased retention due to being more interactive
• Improvement in the quality of the content
• Gets more viral
• Gives more personalized opportunities

Conclusion 
Though we agree to the fact that the AR technology is still in the developmental phase, but we do have some clear success examples across various industries which shows the graph touching all-time high. Industries have already predicted a faster development and evolution due to the increase in the internet speed and upgraded smart devices.

Right from marketing, to manufacturing, to social media, to education industry and fashion industry the technology has the capability to change the course of business in near future. Moreover with more startups emerging every day, augmented reality will surely impact businesses to a great extent.

It is for sure that the future of augmented reality is really bright and lucrative in mobile as well as in the web world. If you have any queries or suggestions regarding the improvement of this work, please do comment below.