Iron Man is cool because he’s got all the gadgets. That seems to be general consensus. He’s got AI as a personal assistant; his phone can take elaborate dictation and then present the information on screen as a projection as if it were really there. It’s pure sci-fi fantasy bliss.
Sure, Siri or Google Assistant (who really needs a better name) might not be sassing back at you any time soon, but AR (augmented reality) is here, and it’s almost ready for prime time.
Remember Google Glass? It wasn’t exactly a hit. It was too much, too soon. It sought to revolutionize nothing less than the way we see and interact with the world. No wonder it didn’t catch on. It’s like introducing a Nissan Skyline to a person that just heard there’s a way to get around that isn’t by horse.
So we went back to basics. The summer of 2016 saw the release of Pokemon GO. Seen through our mobile devices, Pokemon could pop up anywhere, and it was a massive boost for any business that understood how to utilize the inherent lure of promising people something beyond what we can perceive in reality.
Fast forward a year and AR is on the brink of finally achieving greatness. From flyers to restaurant menus to potential triple-A gaming – AR and AR users are focusing on a brand new frontier of reaching audiences.
How could this affect business? The possibilities are near limitless. Imagine an AR business card that your phone scanned automatically, that would present the viewer with options on which app to integrate data with immediately? Or a visual representation of the person who the card belongs to, reminding the viewer exactly why they made the contact in the first place? How about a personalized message within the card, left exclusively for the person watching? Trailers for films playing just by glancing at a poster? A 3D tour of an apartment layout?
Even better – it’s happening everywhere. With only imagination as a limit, reality has just gotten a whole lot bigger.