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Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably been a part of at least one conversation regarding augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) in recent years. Now especially, with Facebook changing its name to Meta and announcing its bigger plans of transitioning into a metaverse, the buzz around AR and VR is louder than ever.

However, augmented reality is not a new term, especially for businesses. In 2020, the AR market was worth around $7 billion, and experts predict that this number will rise to $152 billion by 2030. So virtual reality is here to stay and play a significant role in the lives of people and businesses around the world.

According to Investopedia — “Augmented reality (AR) is an enhanced version of the real physical world that is achieved through the use of digital visual elements, sound, or other sensory stimuli delivered via technology. It is a growing trend among companies involved in mobile computing and business applications in particular.”

In layman’s terms, augmented reality refers to rendering digital data and images onto the real world using technology’s digital sensory stimuli. A great example of augmented reality is Pokemon Go, where pokemon were hidden like Easter eggs for users to find in the real world. Another example of AR is Snapchat lenses and Instagram filters.

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As for Virtual Reality (VR), it’s a complete immersion into a virtual world, shutting off the physical world entirely through special VR devices like HTC Vive, Google Cardboard, and Oculus Rift. Virtual Reality is used for entertainment purposes like games and in more serious fields, like healthcare. For example, VR is used to treat patients with anxiety and PTSD by re-enacting and helping them overcome their traumatic experiences.

Currently, people are under the misconception that VR and AR apply only to entertainment and games. However, there are a lot of industries that already implement augmented reality and virtual reality in their operations, and the influence of these technologies is going to shape our future in more ways than we can imagine.

Many businesses hire remote assistants worldwide to support their businesses. It’s more affordable and exposes entrepreneurs to a global talent pool of virtual assistants. This current reality is exciting in its way. And moving forward, virtual and augmented reality will only play a more prominent role in how businesses operate. Some of the industries that already actively use VR and AR are -

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Medicine is one of the most significant fields that benefit from virtual and augmented reality. With the help of virtual reality, it’s now easy for healthcare professionals to practice on virtual models to improve their skills. Additionally, as we earlier mentioned, VR and AR are also used to treat mental health issues like anxiety and PTSD.

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Through Virtual Reality, engineers no longer have to incur additional expenses on building prototypes and experimenting with virtually different looks and feels of vehicles. This saves companies a significant amount of time and money while building machines. Some companies like BMW and Jaguar hold reviews regarding design and engineering before spending any money on physically building their cars.

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You might have already noticed that there are certain clothing apps and online stores that let you “try on” their product before you buy it, such as Lenskart, where you can use AR technology to see what you would look with their glasses before making up your mind about the purchase.

Similarly, in the future, stores are attempting to take this concept to the next level by implementing VR and allowing customers to try on clothes without physically entering the store. Now that many companies are moving towards building a space for themselves in the metaverse, it’s entirely possible that physical stores might soon become an outdated concept.

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Ever been on a holiday that didn’t quite meet your expectations? Well, now you have the possibility of trying out your holiday before you go on it, thanks to Thomas Cook’s “Try Before You Fly” VR experience. This initiative helped boost New York excursions by 190%.

In the future, who knows how AR can affect the tourism industry? When can we transport ourselves into a fantasy world entirely, who says that we won’t be able to travel the world from the comfort of our home?

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Companies like VirtualSpeech have started using VR and AR in their corporate training. Precisely, in soft skills. This not only helps the companies reduce costs but also improves retention rates.

With the already vast potential of augmented reality, it’s no surprise that businesses are trying to find ways to implement it to save costs and get the best resources for their companies.

Just like how you could hire a virtual assistant to help with business administration tasks or assist you with content marketing, businesses can now connect their employees with industry experts from around the world. This makes global training more accessible even to small businesses.

With the help of virtual and augmented reality, businesses can also connect and collaborate with customers from various geographic regions. For example, suppose a customer is experiencing an issue with your product. In that case, you can connect them with a technician who can control devices over the internet and solve technical software issues without visiting their house in person.

First, let’s think about how we currently access customer support. For example, if we have an issue with our products or devices, we first contact the company and request assistance. Then, they take their time to understand the issue at hand and try to resolve it by guiding us through the steps necessary to fix the problem.

If we’re lucky, the problem gets solved quickly, and everyone is happy. If not, we have to spend an hour frantically trying to understand what’s wrong, only to, in the end, make an appointment with a technician to fix the issue at home.

Now you’re thinking, it’s almost 2022, there has to be a better way, right?

This is where AR and VR come into play. By combining these two powerful technologies, companies can now assist through interactive live video streaming by incorporating real-life physical environments with computer-generated virtual images.

This modern approach will help improve communication between technicians and customers to provide precise guidance and help solve issues faster. Additionally, it will help save costs and time of physically visiting clients’ houses from a business perspective.

Augmented and virtual reality can offer assistance to a broad range of business applications, such as -

Customer support: as we mentioned earlier, AR and VR can help assist clients better with their technical difficulties and help companies save both time and money.

Contracting and Billing: through the use of AR and VR, all parties can have a view of physical documents and point out issues concerning invoices, contracts, and bills. It reduces misunderstanding between parties and minimizes the chances of making errors.

Technical fieldwork: technicians can now receive visual data using virtual reality technologies before arriving at the site. This helps them be more prepared and shortens the resolution time.

Businesses worldwide are already leaning towards using remote assistance, starting with hiring virtual assistants. As for virtual and augmented reality, Tim Cooks, the CEO of Apple, said during a 2020 earnings call that AR is on its way to “change everything.” As for business, the sky’s the limit for companies willing to adapt to these changes and implement remote assistance into their operations.

Author bio: Swapna is a content writer for Wishup based out of Chennai, India, with a background in Media and Mass Communication.

Remote assistants in combination with AR or VR in US 2022 was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.