Why Are Businesses Adopting AR and VR?
With the onset of the pandemic, businesses came to a standstill with lockdowns, WFH and other restrictions on travel and shopping. Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) took over this phase by bringing employers, employees and clients/consumers virtually close through immersive communicative experience. Such immersive technologies blur the line between real and digital worlds.
AR takes on the physical environment and adds digital layers of information to it. It dramatically reduces error and increases productivity. On the other hand, VR can be accessed through a medium of headset or browser or smartphone. Industries such as entertainment and gamification, healthcare, retail and online shopping had these technologies in their strategy pipeline but are speeding up the adaptation process so that they get to expand their horizon.
Top companies like IBM have adopted Extended Reality (XR), a combination of AR, VR and MR, to boost workforce efficiency and resilience by changing traditional work methods. With the necessity to work remotely and travel next to impossible, XR helped shift the whole structure of work and improved their workforce’s efficiency, accuracy, and productivity.
Now looking into the healthcare sector, John Hopkins University started AR projects for their students. This AR tool displays an internal view of the body on top of a student’s physique. It also includes a gesture-sensitive user interface, allowing people to interact with the AR representation.
AR and VR are being used in shopping centres, thereby modernizing the 21st-century shopping experience. VR in the retail industry enhances customer experience, and it also creates an extension to online shopping. Test drives in car showrooms are also being done in VR and AR, with a 360° coverage of all available car features. All the above falls in today’s regulation for low-touch, hands-off and hygiene try-outs. Businesses use AR and VR by creating human-machine interfaces, safety training experiences, 3D design works, virtual travel, and much more.
If you plan to include these technologies in your business, research well about the proper plausible methods to use so that your audience engage and share their experience in a meaningful way. These technologies will help us humans enhance our capabilities by taking full advantage of new digital knowledge and machine capabilities. VR and AR have drastically reshaped what’s possible in every sector and industry, even in the early stages. The pandemic posed significant challenges to the working world of 2020, but it also paved the way for evolution in traditional work methods.