Augmented Reality (AR) has become more than just a buzzword for the last couple of years. AR is getting bigger, and according to Statista the industry is going from generating $200 million annually to an incredible $48.7 billion industry
Image via Statista
Although everyone was expecting Virtual Reality (VR) to take over it appears that AR has incredible practical applications that can make it a multi-billion dollar industry in the near future.
Image via McKinsey
Let’s dive in and see what we should expect in the AR arena for 2020.
More AR in Practical Applications
We will likely see a lot of introduction of AR in the areas of education, engineering, and healthcare in 2020. Although many think of video games as the primary industry of AR its applications are vast and expand beyond that in all directions.
So what are some trends we are expecting?
1. Shopping
Garner reported that at least 100 million users will be adopting AR for shopping in 2019 which is expected to remain one of the hottest trends as we enter 2020.
Mobile devices that integrate with AR technology is now allowing this sector to head for a huge expansion. The go-to-market barrier that required people to adopt these new technologies appears to not be a threat anymore, with retailers and customers feeling comfortable with using AR.
We should be seeing an average of 30% more implementation from retails in the next couple of years.
2. Artificial Reality
Augmented Reality will be pushed and enhanced by Artificial Intelligence.
AI and Machine learning are growing quite fast as well. When adding all these new wonderful technologies together we have new applications of AR in the medical field to improve diagnosis and potentially improve outcomes of surgeries, etc.
Image via Simlabit
Did you know that on the retail end 35% of Amazon sales are due to its machine learning?
AR is now coming to give us the potential to bring together the virtual and real worlds.
3. Navigation
This is an obvious solution that we should expect to see trending in 2020. AR technologies for indoor navigation will begin taking shaped and being deployed.
People are already relying on GPS and Apple to get to their destinations, but indoor navigation is a new and exciting trend that will boom in the coming years.
4. Collaboration and Remote Assistance
As more and more companies are choosing to employee remote teams, and global companies keep growing, AR has incredible applications to personalize communication once again.
AR will be creating a “new reality” where everyone on a conference call will be able to interact and see each other in a more productive way.
Microsoft is taking a lead in this by deploying the beta of their AR enhanced video-calling system to implement holographic-style interactions.
There are many more possible trends we should be seeing in 2020.
Which trend do you think will be taking the lead?