CC Image courtesy of Antonio Zugaldia
Augmented reality (AR) technologies have a broad role to play in enterprise, and can be used to enhance efficiency and productivity in businesses, according to Gartner.
Gartner said AR can fuel business innovation through facilitating real-time decision making, and would be well applied to business processes, workflows and employee training.
“Augmented reality is the real-time use of information in the form of text, graphics, audio and other virtual enhancements integrated with real-world objects,” said Tuong Huy Nguyen, principal research analyst at Gartner.
“AR leverages and optimises the use of other technologies such as mobility, location, 3D content management and imaging and recognition. It is especially useful in the mobile environment because it enhances the user’s senses via digital instruments to allow faster responses or decision-making.”
Nguyen said AR is particularly useful in locating objects of importance in the vicinity, highlighting objects of potentially special interest, giving a user directions, and providing additional information about an object of interest.
The improvements in location services and image recognition have primed AR technologies for the business arena, Nguyen said, with businesses able to use AR location features for vehicle, campus and in-building navigation and identification, while image recognition features are suitable for businesses requiring employees to identify objects in order to make immediate decisions.
As an example, Nguyen said AR could be of use to firefighters to make quick decisions about temperatures and dangerous areas, as well as routes to exits.
“AR is most useful as a tool in industries where workers are either in the field, do not have immediate access to information, or jobs that require one or both hands and the operator’s attention,” said Nguyen.
“As such, the impact on weightless industries is lower because these employees often have constant and direct access to the information they need (such as knowledge workers).”
According to Gartner, AR poses the biggest potential for improvements to efficiency by simplifying processes, increasing available information, providing new solutions, and as such increasing overall productivity.
“IT organisations can use AR to bridge the digital and physical world. AR is an opportunity for IT to provide leadership to enhance the enterprise’s interaction with its internal user base,” Gartner said.
