What Experts Expect From Enterprise Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality In 2020

According to Deloitte Consulting Managing Director Allan Cook, “Every ten or 15 years, there’s an impactful shift in the way people use and interact with technology and data… Mixed reality is going to be the fourth shift [after the PC, the internet, and mobile], and it will be as big as each one of those earlier shifts.”

On the surface, that statement may seem like a stretch. But the business impact of these technologies, which are well documented across numerous industries and enterprise use cases, support such a bold claim.

For instance, using VR for employee training improves pass rates and significantly reduces training time compared to traditional classroom lecture models. Likewise, when directions and data are provided in AR across field guidance and maintenance scenarios, human error can be eliminated entirely.

These impressive results have led many enterprises to test the waters, yet few have fully taken the plunge. A recent Harvard Business Review Analytic Services study found that 87% of large companies are currently exploring, piloting, or deploying mixed reality, but the vast majority are still in the exploratory or proof-of-concept stages.

That’s going to change this year, according to 15 industry experts and analysts who contributed to our new report, “Top 2020 Trends: Enterprise AR & VR.” Below, we share contributions from three individuals featured in the report, who explain why 2020 will be a defining year.

Enterprise XR grows up

XR has proven to be a paradigm shift for enterprise in terms of boosting productivity, cost-savings, and learning and development, particularly in relation to highly skilled and specialized areas ranging from surgery to spacecraft engineering. Yet where so far we have seen pioneering companies work largely on an experimental trial-and-error basis, this next decade will see research catching up to meaningfully support this deployment on the ground.

Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, enterprise stakeholders will increasingly have the information and expert guidance at their disposal to tailor and customize solutions optimized for their specific industry, goals, and needs.

Academic research is now being conducted all over the world to investigate not if XR works but how it works and what considerations must be taken into account when designing content.  As more studies are conducted, and more use cases are shared among enterprise stakeholders across an expanding ecosystem of different industries, we will move on from the heady days of experimental exploration and marveling at the power of immersive technologies towards more targeted, considered, evidence-based and industry-specific approaches.

In other words, enterprise XR is about to enter its grown-up phase.  AREA Members Taqtile, NVIDIA and PTC are mentioned in the report.