Enterprise AR Trends for 2020 and Beyond

Many decision-makers and CEOs are looking for ways to transform their companies by incorporating the latest technologies. Thus, the latest enterprise AR trends represent a topic of interest for management teams across various industries. And for good reason. Augmented reality has already proven to be a versatile and useful technology that improves the workplace and business processes.

What Is the Impact of Enterprise AR on the Business World?

AR has penetrated almost all the industries: automotive, professional services, education and training, retail, architecture, and healthcare. These are just a few core industries where professionals from junior to senior levels are working with AR tools.

Thus, it is worth looking at short-term and medium-term enterprise AR trends, to see where the business and professional world is heading and how the workplace will be transformed.

Here are some of the most important enterprise AR trends for the next few years:

1. AR Becomes the Norm for Frontline Workers

Workers are used to handling various tools and pieces of equipment in order to perform their tasks. These tasks cover manufacturing, maintenance, and troubleshooting and operating various industrial machines.

Very soon, AR headsets will become a regular tool for all these workers. As proven by various companies, augmented reality is an excellent medium for displaying instructions, offering expert support, and reinforcing safety rules.

2. AR Hardware Will Become Better, More Affordable and More Comfortable

This is one of the enterprise AR trends that everyone will profit from. As augmented reality is becoming more pervasive in all industries, hardware producers will come up with new, improved models of AR glasses. These new models will be more affordable, lightweight and easy to use, as well as more powerful, with improved performance.

Already, several top-level companies like LG, Apple, and Sony are joining the market of AR hardware producers, dominated so far by Microsoft and Magic Leap. This increased level of competition is healthy for the industry, not only for enterprise AR but also for consumer products.

3. One of the Ongoing Enterprise AR Trends: Retail Transformation 

Consumers love AR as part of their shopping experience. Also, developers are constantly working on improving facial recognition, latency, and other factors to make product try-on more realistic.

As the last few months demonstrated, AR capabilities embedded in shopping apps and websites have kept sales going, even under difficult conditions. Thus, consumers will soon expect all fashion, cosmetics, furniture and home improvement brands to let them experiment with virtual objects before purchasing products.

4. Increased Mobility and Collaboration

Among other enterprise AR trends, this will be most beneficial in a post-COVID world. Through collaborative tools that allow object manipulation and editing, teams can work together without sharing a physical space.

With many employees still working from home, the possibilities offered by cloud AR services are endless. They will allow business to go on while people stay safe and comply with social distancing rules. At the same time, it will allow businesses to work with international clients and expand their market.

5. Enterprise AR Software Will Be More Specialized and Customized

Companies have understood that AR offers a competitive edge if it is implemented and used correctly. Thus, they are no longer satisfied with ready-made solutions. Developers will have the task to create highly specialized and customized solutions.

These solutions will serve each specific industry and meet the demands of corporations in terms of data protection, business processes, and specific work procedures. This is one of the enterprise AR trends that will continue over the year and differentiate top players from the rest of their competitors.