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The global virtual reality market is expected to hit $34 billion (~£26 billion) by 2023, with 40.5 percent of that gaming and entertainment media. The other 60 percent? Business and other applications that transform the way we work, learn, and live. Virtual, augmented, and mixed realities will change the way our world works, making learning easier, jobs safer and knowledge more insightful and applicable to our roles in work. There are countless ways Extended Reality will change our world, and indeed, already have. Here’s why VR and AR should be on your radar for the near future, whatever your business may be.

Changing Our World: Why Extended Reality Is the Future of Work

Extended Reality (XR) has applications across businesses in all sectors, making work safer and more efficient, helping employees learn their role in controlled and risk-free environments, and more, while reducing overall operating costs for businesses and associated costs for risks that are subsequently avoided as XR is introduced. Compound Annual Growth Rates (CAGR) in multiple sectors are rising rapidly, with Onsite assembly and Safety expected to lead the way with increases of 177.4% from 2018 through to 2023 (Source). Areas such as industrial maintenance, retail showcasing, and lab and field are also expected to rise by more than 137%. Businesses are seeing the benefits of implementing XR, from better training, to higher safety and efficiency across multiple areas, XR is set to change the way we work forever. Many will have seen the fiction of XR across media – titles such as Minority Report and the like spring to mind – and while they take the idea of virtual and augmented reality to fantastical extremes, practical and realistic applications in our world today offer greater and more tangible benefits to businesses and their staff, than anything we may have seen on-screen.

How Extended Reality Is Already Being Used in Business

Virtual and augmented reality applications are already in use in a variety of businesses. From employee training to more efficient operations, XR is changing the world of work. Here are a number of examples already in use today. Training Employees Training employees can be costly and also presents a risk to business; if a new employee makes a mistake, whether that’s making food at a fast food outlet, or incorrectly entering data, those results have consequences for the business, typically financially. Training employees using XR technologies means employees can learn to perform their job safely and without the normal pressures of being expected to perform without error in their first day on the job. CBS reported on STARS - Situational Training and Response Simulator - in 2017, a virtual reality facility in New Jersey, where law enforcement officers can train physically in active situations as well as situations where police are expected to make decisions based on the level of threat. Other examples of training personnel to perform in new roles includes flight training such as Learn to Fly and VirtualSpeech – a soft skills improvement training platform, enabling employees and business leaders alike to improve presentations, communications, and more with actionable feedback. Prototyping and Design Instead of costly prototype design iterations needing to be made, businesses can design and develop in virtual reality, before testing products out in a virtual space, enabling them to see product issues and shortcomings long before additional costs and redesigns are involved. Boeing and AirBus already use virtual reality to avoid spending millions iterating on prototypes in this way. Advertising and Consumer-Facing Applications This application of XR already spans a wide number of businesses, from real-estate agents and furniture companies using augmented and virtual reality to show off homes, or help customers visualise how furniture will look in their rooms, to customer-specific advertising, and more. In a world where people are having to socially distance, the idea of taking virtual reality tours to view houses or shop for furniture without heading to a store makes sense, and advertising is becoming more and more tailored to each customer as XR and other technologies improve. Sky has a production team called Sky VR Studio, who create content that span all manner of content types, bringing viewers broadcasts via Facebook, putting them into events in sport and elsewhere, enhancing and adding a new dimension to the viewing experience. Game Development Gaming represents an area where XR technologies will play a large role in the years to come, offering gamers a brand-new way to experience the worlds they encounter, and positioning them truly as the main character. While games are primarily entertainment, there are also applications where consumers are creating; Dreams, a PlayStation VR title, lets gamers create whatever they can image. Using such technologies and software, gamers can discover and create new worlds, teach and learn, and much more, even developing products themselves. Learning in Virtual Reality Virtual and augmented realities can be powerful learning tools in the classroom, bringing worlds alive, and going beyond the abstract knowledge found in textbooks. The Solar System becomes a space that students can see, while 3D dinosaur models become animals students can touch and interact with, gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation of the world around them. Artistic applications let students express themselves in a variety of ways, and maths becomes more fun as it’s applied to real-world scenarios; the volume of the Pyramids of Giza stops being a dry maths problem and becomes a mental challenge with a visualised and engaging solution. XR can change the way we all learn, allowing us to interact with the world meaningfully, and developing our minds beyond the text in our books. Small setups with monitors so others can spectate/see what’s happening. Clean, easy to use setup due to cabling.

The Technology Behind Extended Reality: How ASUS Makes It Happen

XR technologies not only require hardware such as head-mounted displays, but also graphics technologies and systems that ensure each experience is stutter-free, smooth, and avoids motion sickness and similar illnesses from poorly-implemented XR experiences. ASUS graphics deliver stunning performance when it comes to virtual reality experiences, and for businesses looking to not only deliver XR technologies to their staff, but to provide teaching and monitoring environments for management personnel, our displays will ensure you can monitor progress and use XR experiences to teach beyond single-employee situations. Look to ASUS to provide you with a technology environment ready for realities beyond our own: ASUS UK