Profiles in innovation: Virtual & augmented reality

Bellini, H., Chen, W., Sugiyama, M., Shin, M., Alam, S., & Takayama, D. (2016). Profiles in innovation: Virtual & augmented reality. Virtual & Augmented Reality: Understanding the Race for the Next Computing Platform. 1-30.

Summary

This report from Goldman Sachs details their position on the markets for Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).  Both in size and scope, the potential markets for both VR and AR are large over the next decade.  There are hundreds of billions in revenue that are forecast for the industry.  Some of the biggest drivers for VR and AR will be gaming, live events, video entertainment, healthcare, real estate, retail, education, engineering, and the military.  Most of the market assumptions are driven by VR, and their belief is that AR has more hurdles to come in terms of the technology to display information in real-time; however, the technology is starting to catch up to the promise.  Indeed, AR has the potential to change the way we work and bring computing closer to a true extension of the human brain.

Experience

There’s a lot of potential out there for VR and AR.  Though I don’t have a lot of experience with it, I can see lots of opportunities.  The challenge will be how to bring it in to the work environment such that it adds value and is easily adopted.

KEYWORDS: AR, VR, market, gaming, live events, video entertainment, healthcare, real estate, retail, education, engineering, military, real-time, billions