To understand the current state of Extended Reality (XR), an umbrella term to referring to augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR), look no further than your neighborhood Walmart.
The global retailer was a pioneer in introducing AR experiences in Roblox, a virtual world, but is now testing the tech on a more mainstream audience, because, it says, retail today goes beyond just online and in-store shopping, or even a combination of both.
In October Walmart revealed proprietary artificial intelligence, Generative AI, Augmented Reality (AR) and Immersive Commerce platforms it is leveraging to create hyper-personalized, convenient and engaging shopping experiences across its stores, Sam’s Clubs, apps and other virtual environments.
Its AR platform called Retina leverages AI, GenAI and automation to create tens of thousands of 3D assets, along with Immersive Commerce APIs. These technologies enable the company to bring the Walmart shopping experience into new virtual social environments like Roblox, unlock new revenue streams and be at the forefront of Adaptive Retail.
But, in a sign of the times, Retina also powers 10 AR experiences across Walmart U.S. and Sam’s Club that have seen a 10x increase in customer/member adoption, reducing rates of return and improved conversion rates. Looking ahead, Walmart says it plans to bring View in Your Home to Canada, Mexico and Chile via Retina and create more interactive experiences, like “hotspots,” an extension that enables customers/members to easily access production information while they are viewing an item in 3D. The company is also actively working on headset-based experiences to enable customers/members to visualize furniture in an inspirational setting.
Walmart’s announcement illustrates how XR is starting to become a part of consumers’ retail experience, says Andreea Danielescu, a technologist with 10 patents who until recently was the Director of the Future Technologies R&D group at Accenture Lab, which focuses on new emerging technologies that blend the physical and digital.
Walmart is not alone in experimenting with all types of immersive experiences.
Sephora and L’Oréal report that AR-enabled virtual try-ons result in 50% fewer returns, according to an article in Business Insider. And, according to other press reports, IKEA is experiencing a 2.3x higher conversion with an AR room visualizer, Amazon an 85% user confidence boost with virtual shoe try-ons, Shopify a 29% rise in customer satisfaction with personalized AR and h&m a 42% boost in add-to-cart rates with its virtual showroom.
These experiences are being enabled by the development of easy-to-use XR interfaces that help agencies develop campaigns for big brands, says Pedro Jardim. His company anitya offers just that: a low-code platform for building and sharing immersive 3D experiences.
Beyond retail and entertainment, applications for XR include corporate training and education, says Jardim.
There are convincing arguments for using the technology to train employees. Studies show that people retain less than 20% of knowledge after one week, using traditional methods, but immersive technology helps people to retain up to 80% of knowledge even after one year, says Jardim.
There is little wonder, then, that the education sector is evaluating the technology. One of anitya’s clients is servicing thousands of students and has over 1,000 lessons in biology, math and language subjects. It is currently transitioning this content to the anitya platform, Jardim says.
Why Now Could be the Time For XR’s Exponential Growth
Jardim, who gave a presentation at Web Summit in Lisbon on the state of XR with Diego Borgo, a Metaverse and Web3 advisor who helps Fortune 500 brands in the Metaverse and Web3 space, argues that the combination of XR with blockchain and AI is creating the right conditions for the technology to take off.
The hardware is coming. In September, Snap announced the fifth generation of its Spectacles product which can overlay digital graphics onto the physical world. The technology is only available to developers willing to pay $99 a month for a full year to build AR apps that can be used on the device.
Later in the month, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, unveiled new lightweight AR glasses at the company’s annual conference. The prototype, dubbed Orion, is also capable of overlaying 2D and 3D content on the real world and can use AI to analyze use to provide wearers with proactive suggestions. Meta also announced its next generation of smart glasses, available in Ray-Ban frames with built-in camera, open-ear audio and social sharing. (These don’t use AR but are an example of what is to come).
Current VR and AR platforms that are used to power AR glasses have limitations, including their heavy nature, high battery consumption, processing challenges and high cost of production. Jardim says anitya’s platform has proven to be up to 333% more efficient than competitors like Unity’s when used with Lenovo’s virtual reality ThinkReality VRX headset and reduces battery usage by up to 50. Lenovo and anitya are collaborating to increase the number of applications in the Lenovo ThinkReality VRX glasses and onboard more agencies and creators to create content, he says.
Jardim believes that the introduction of anitya’s platform, combined with hardware and software advances over the past 12 months, could be the tipping point for XR.
Danielescu is more circumspect. Luxottica, the company behind Meta’s next generation of smart glasses, has been working on the technology for about ten years, she says. Other big tech companies, including Intel and Apple, have been working on XR hardware for many years. Despite best efforts and huge investments, there is still a long way to go before these devices go mainstream and become an integral part of people’s everyday lives, says Danielescu.
The widespread adoption of AR displays has been limited due to the bulky projection optics of their light engines and their inability to accurately portray three-dimensional depth cues for virtual content, among other factors. A May article in Nature indicates that researchers are making headway in solving some of these issues.
But there is no need for retailers to wait for expensive headsets to become less geeky, cheaper and more accurate, to start giving customers an AR experience, Danielescu says. “We can do this with what we have out there already.”
We will see more and more companies adding interactive elements into products, she predicts. An example of this would be a smart label on a wine bottle that uses near-field communication (NFC) on mobile phones to access a website about that wine, giving consumers much more information without adding packaging. An edible RFID sensor can be added to chocolate that allows consumers to scan it with their phone to enter a sweepstakes and win a ticket to an event.
Immersive experiences are destined to become more mainstream, she says, but it will happen gradually and at least for the short-term, more likely to be powered by phones than smart glasses or headsets.
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