In the year 2021, the experiences of the customer have changed tremendously making things very much dependent on technology. But now in 2022 being the post-covid era, AR-infused services have helped both the business and our everyday customers’ lives to be simple and convenient. The presence of AR amongst our community has helped both B2B and B2C companies provide contactless services.
Even though AR technologies at one point in time were inconvenient by users of all categories, it had created a slight expectation for the doom of Augmented reality.
But the pandemic has changed the whole course and even without realizing it, we have more or less adapted to AR technology. It has the capability and commercial value due to the fact it may be used in lots of specific ways. Here are 7 AR trends that could be part of our future.
1. AR and 5G networks
Also called the 5th generation network, it is a global wireless network well known after 3G, and 4G networks. 5G allows a brand new form of community that is designed to virtually connect everyone and everything together such as machines, objects, and devices. 5G networks may be visible as part of the imminent future which could encompass enhancement of mobile broadband connections, mission-crucial communications, and plenty of different services that might be upgraded which aren’t known to us today.
The world is running in a fast-paced manner, the incorporation of AR and 5g network will provide seamless connectivity to customers. Therefore, this could be executed through ushering it via immersive experiences along with VR and AR with faster, more uniform data rates, decreased latency, and decreased cost-per-bit. It may also assist in cutting down data rates, power, and mobility—presenting extraordinarily lean and low-cost connectivity solutions.
2. AR in Education Sector
In the year 2022, due to the advent of COVID-19, the students have not been able to restart their educational pathways in conventional mode. Due to the advancement of technologies, students from all over the world have started to learn via online platforms such as Zoom, Google meets, Microsoft teams, etc. Students of all age groups have also actively started using smartphones and other devices for enhanced learning. There is also a rise in the usage of AR devices for students to visualize content to amplify their thinking processes of students.
Considering its potential to be cost-effective in the future, many educational institutions have also invested their resources in claiming customized e-learning platforms in order to promote easy conduct and organizing of activities for their students. Therefore in the future, we could see a growth in AR technologies being used for various forms of experiential learning thus revamping the education sector holistically.
3. AR in Retail Business
We have witnessed the boom of AR in retail businesses via online shopping. E-commerce websites have grown tremendously over the year 2021-2022 due to the presence of a pandemic. Right from clothing, cosmetics, and even groceries are being sold online. Because of AR, you can view all the items in your cart from different angles like you visit a conventional shop to check the product. In the comfort of our own homes, anything can be ordered online and AR makes the whole process smooth.
Companies like Apparel, Lacoste, Sephora have enabled virtual fitting rooms for customers. Both B2B and B2C companies have invested in creating more accessible, and convenient websites for better serving their clients and customers. In the future, more software with AR features will be in high demand. There will also be a high demand for services for their AR app development as well.
4. AR in Healthcare
Healthcare has been embracing AR technologies in the best way possible like sorting out medicines, medical procedures, performing surgeries, and many more. Nurses and doctors of today have used AR technologies to improve interactions, patient education, and other related outcomes.
AR helps in undertaking a 3D approach of the patient’s anatomy from the surgeon’s point of view and is possible to elevate accuracy and outcomes for patients. This enhances better performance for surgeons thus increasing its demand in the healthcare field. AR technologies help in the storage of patient data, easy updating of information, and many more related to patient care. For doctors, easy mapping of the patient’s body is provided so that these doctors/surgeons can locate issues easily thus performing a smooth medical procedure.
A realistic application of augmented reality that’s in use these days is vein visualization. Many patients are uncomfortable with being injected or having blood taken, the experience is a whole lot worse while it’s hard to discover a vein and the patient has to be “stuck” numerous times. AccuVein for example, that’s in use in hospitals these days, can project a map of a patient’s veins onto their skin, making it less complicated for healthcare employees to locate the vein the first time.
Therefore in the future AR technologies will help to bridge the gap between medical students and professionals by making the learning better, improving diagnosis, and productive patient care.
5. Artificial Intelligence and AR
Artificial Intelligence has played an important role in AR where ie; usage of chatbots is a play of Artificial Intelligence. Apps like Snapchat and Instagram use face filters where Artificial Intelligence comes into play by processing the user’s facial features and contours. Chatbots give us a feeling of asking our queries directly to an actual person.
With the help of data science engineers, artificial intelligence is designed and incorporated to assist AR software. Without artificial intelligence backing up AR software, there is no meaning. The future of AR software lies interlinked with AI as the combination provides a much more natural humanistic touch to the services provided by businesses.
6. AR and Navigation
AR is also widely used for navigation purposes and understands physical components to navigate better. With the help of a simple camera and GPS, it helps us travel like it’s very much real to the eyes. This feature could help in understanding life traffic, dangerous road conditions, to report accidents, etc.
Google’s AR Live View walking directions for Google Maps has stepped forward because it first entered beta in August 2019. In October 2020, Google brought several new abilities to enhance the AR Live View experience outdoors. Among the ones was the capability to overlay landmarks and the growth of Live view to more cities.
7. AR and Automotive Industry
AR has played an important role in the automotive industry. It is particularly used in alerting hazards for the driver, assisting in parking, navigation, alerting part failures if any, like oil change, etc. In the future with a great inflow of electric vehicles, we can see the rising importance of AR technologies being installed in cars and also greatly relying on these for effective functioning. AR technologies being installed in these cars makes it reliable as it avoids danger, providing smooth and safe driving.
Conclusion
AR has also been actively working in various other industries like supply chain and logistics, sports, media, etc. AR technologies so far proved that they have been making things easy and simple and at the same time cost-effective for users pertaining to any industry. These AR solutions have already proved increased productivity and efficiency and it is expected to see a surge in usage of these solutions in the coming years.