The Future is Here: Uses For Augmented Reality in Business

Some projections place augmented reality use at a compound annual growth rate of more than 70% by 2022. While this might be a hair rosy, you don’t want this technology to leave you in the dust. New uses for augmented reality in business come nearly every day, as its popularity and practicality soar.

Don’t treat augmented reality like a flash in the pan or a marketing gimmick. Whether you want to use it for customer-centered applications, productivity, or internal communications, augmented and virtual reality in business remains set to grow.

Let’s get right into it, shall we? Keep reading to learn answers to questions like “why use augmented reality software?” and “how will this help my business?”

What’s the Difference?

You’ve probably heard about both augmented and virtual reality at this point. What differentiates them, though, might have eluded you.

Virtual reality completely replaces one or more senses, usually sight. Augmented reality gives you full access to your existing environment, but lays things on top of it or replaces things.

An augmented reality translation program, for instance, would let you point your camera at a real sign written in Japanese and give you a basic translation. A virtual reality program would show you a sign regardless of where you were.

The two technologies have a lot of overlap, and investing in one will usually provide pathways for investing in the other. Sometimes, though, only one of them will have obvious uses.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality In Business Settings

Some of the best augmented reality service for business comes in internal applications. Developers haven’t scratched the surface of what this technology can do yet, but early results in several areas seem promising.

Hiring

Ever wished you could collapse the phone interview and the skills assessment into one step? Augmented and virtual reality apps let you come close.

This technology lets you perform skill assessments remotely. If you prefer face-to-face interviews for that step, you can use augmented reality to enhance your skill assessments without the need for a lot of props or printouts.

Training and Onboarding

Training received a lot of hype among early uses for augmented reality in business. It remains one of the most popular uses for both AR and VR tech in these settings. New employees can develop skills and office familiarity without ever setting foot in the building.

Needless to say, COVID-19 has made these applications even more necessary. With many businesses only now starting to return to in-person work, offsite training through AR and virtual reality has become even more useful. Job seekers gain, too, as they can see the office without having to come physically see the office.

More interested in getting employees you’ve already hired onboard? Look into augmented reality training apps.

For new employees, having an easy way to look up protocols for specific elements of their work can speed up skill development. With an AR app, they can just point their smart device at tags around the office and see any relevant information.

AR won’t magically transform the processes you use to train and upskill employees overnight. It can, however, make the process faster and more efficient.

Product Development

Have a team working on a new product from multiple offices? Want them to stay on the same page with the current spec? Look into AR to enhance your product development.

With AR prototyping, you can have people in multiple locations walk around and visualize the same project. You can also easily present current progress to other stakeholders, such as stockholders and other departments.

AR lets you do some things you could never do with a physical prototype as well. Want to see something that would normally be four inches tall from the inside? Blow it up and take a look in AR.

Augmented Reality With External Partners

While the opportunities for AR and VR internally can prove very robust, don’t sleep on external opportunities. Sales and marketing can make use of augmented reality too.

Sales

AR can’t replace directly trying a product, but for some products, it comes close. Customers can get a sense of a product without needing to come to a showroom or see a live demo. They can see how a piece of clothing would look on their bodies.

In business-to-business applications, AR sales tools can help bridge the gap between expectation and reality. Customers can come to the process with unrealistic ideas about a product, and the ability to see it in (simulated) action can curb these ideas before they get too fanciful. Similarly, AR can cut down the waste of paper handouts, props, and samples in presentations.

Marketing

Marketers have adopted augmented reality aggressively. Scannable data like QR codes in ads earned its popularity as a simple, straightforward AR implementation. More modern approaches have included interactive magazine ads and app integrations.

These types of campaigns also make it easy to track their impact. You can tell whether an AR ad sees use, and from there, see its effectiveness in landing sales. Tracking your return on investment is never a waste of time.

Ditch the Likes and Modernize

Stop chasing likes, shares, and other metrics that let your marketing team clap each other on the back but don’t lead to sales. Don’t waste your time on gimmicky resume sorters, either. Augmented reality in business can help you build a better version of every interaction.

Looking for ways to integrate new technology into your operations? Want a better social media pipeline? Contact us online or through one of our four offices, and we’ll talk.