The Technological Revolution of the 21st Century: Current Status and Trends in AR Business Applications

Since 2019, there are so many tech company, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, all stepped into the AR related market. According to a survey conducted back in May of 2019, the number of users that owns AR supporting mobile phone has reached 1.5 billion! Now, let’s get back to 2020. The trend has already been established and we can tell more and more leading tech company has dived into the market, which has the value of 5714.2 billion! Therefore, we are going to introduce the AR related applications in all aspects of life that will also grow rapidly in the future of 2020!

Speaking of AR (Augmented Reality), the easiest explanation is that we bring a digital or virtual object into real world, and furthermore, we can interact with the objects! There are also a lot of business AR examples, such as gaming, museum guides, and exhibition marketing. 

One of the most well-known AR cases is Pokemon Go and Wizards Unite from NIANTIC. In the game, you can see both “roads in reality” and “virtual pokemon/magical creature” at the same time from your phone. This is exactly the magic of Augmented Reality.

2020 is believed to be the crucial year of AR business application. At the beginning of the year, Unity, the 3D engine tech  company, published a report: “Top 2020 Trends: Enterprise AR & VR”, in which they invited many leaders in AR/VR related fields to share the trends in various markets. Report also shows tha AR/VR has passed the first stage of product cycle and ready to step into the business application stage. 

Maria Fernandez Guajardo, Director of AR/VR of Facebook, said in the report, “The perception of gimmickry has given way to real business value… Now the industry will need to put in the arduous work of scale.”

With the fast development of 5G, the trend would go toward the wireless device, resulting in rapid increase of usage rate. We believe that, in the foreseeable future, the market share of AR commercials will grow significantly.

(a.) AR application in Smart Factory

While all the tech company are fighting for the ticket to 5G world, traditional industry embarked on the journey to Smart Factory with 5G and IoT as well. The integration of 5G and IoT helps to finalize the AR business application in Smart Factory, so that AR technology can allow operators to interact with it, through the digital interface designed by process visualization to control real machines in real time, to achieve a more complete smart factory integration solution.

(b.) AR and AI

According to the Amazon marketing report, they found that 35% of the sale numbers are from AI recommendation engine, and the result would be better if combined with AR. AI has the perks of analyzing the big data and gives the best related solutions/options to the customers, but it can not abstract the information from the real world, but with a mobile phone and AR, the real environment could be linked to the virtual world, therefore sending the needed statistic to AI system, and finally offer better and comprehensive user service. 

Alright, since now we have seen the current situation in AR market and the possibilities in foreseeable future, let’s talk about some fun cases incorporated with AR tech!

(a.) Navigation and AR

Technology: AR and AI

What if you no longer need to search on the info board, just to find your flight number? This makes me dizzy almost every time… Now, with the navigation APP, the passengers could just scan the flight ticket, and the APP will literally guide you to the boarding gate or the suitcase carousel.Speaking of the applications in the retail store, AI could analyze the best recommendation for customers, and then AR APP could mapping out the route for the best user experience. 

(b.) WebAR

Technology: AR and Javascript

Literally! Literally! We can experience AR on the ordinary mobile phone now! In the past few years, the AR application platform has been transitioning from APP to web, which lowers down the waiting time from downloading and make it accessible for everyone to use.

(b.) Internal Training and AR

Technology: AR and Situational Design 

“Tyre Maker” is undoubtedly a branding tool! The innovation and creativity takes the traditional industry value fly with the trendy technology AR. With its fun and interaction, you only need a mobile phone or a tablet to experience the factory, the production line, and the whole brand story behind it!