Virtual reality is booming in the workplace in the midst of the pandemic. This crisis has served to precipitate something that was predicted to happen in the coming years. The impact is the need for companies to have technological solutions that replace the need to travel to any given place to work. 

VR is currently being used for training, business meetings or providing better customer service during the pandemic.

After years of promises and false starts, Covid-19 has led to a record number of telecommuters and could finally mark the beginning of regular use of VR and RA at home - or at least give the technology a boost on the way to the mainstream.

According to a PwC report last year, it predicted that nearly 23.5 million jobs worldwide would be using RA and VR by 2030 for training, work meetings or providing better customer service. 

According to a report by ABI Research this year, prior to the pandemic, the VR market was projected to grow at a 45.7% compound annual rate, exceeding $24.5 billion in revenues by 2024. The virtual reality used in business is expected to grow from $829 million in 2018 to $4.26 billion in 2023, according to ARtillery Intelligence.

Companies like Spacial, which creates something like a virtual reality version of Zoom, have seen a 1,000% increase in usage since March, according to business chief Jacob Loewenstein. IrisVR, which specializes in immersive software for architecture and planning, can hardly keep up with the demand from new subscribers, said CEO Shane Scranton. Meanwhile, Accenture, a multinational professional services company, is using VR exercises for new recruitment techniques. For its part, Simlab IT, which specializes in creating VR/AR/360 video lessons to simulate situations for staff and students by centralizing all the technology needed to create these lessons on an easy-to-use online platform that is shared among universities, governments, NGOs, and businesses alike.

The challenges ahead

But with the expansion of VR and RA, new opportunities for abuse could emerge according to legal experts: privacy and data are the main concerns, but grievances and even harassment are possible. As happened after the Internet and email, laws for new technology need time to catch up. 

And companies need time to discover best practices. Some issues can be easily regulated by current laws while others will need precedent.

The question cannot be whether immersive technology is finally ready for the public, but rather, are we ready for it?

Experts agree that privacy is a major concern. With VR/AR technology we are collecting information that has not been collected to date in general, certainly not on a large scale.

There are legitimate reasons for companies to record physiological responses such as the movement of the eyes or the heart rate of users. For example, a company may want to treat VR disease. But that information could also be used to obtain psychological responses - measuring sexual preferences, propensity for violence, and degrees of empathy. And that data is very valuable to those trying to reach consumers.

In this sense, we see how health care will be the area most affected by immersion technologies over the next year. For example, physicians can use RA body mapping to view medical statistics directly on a patient, use VR in training and education, or even a trial surgery with a virtual version of the patient’s body. In the meantime, the patient could use the technologies for things like physical therapy.

Future trainings and seminars will be in virtual reality

By using virtual reality, many people can simultaneously participate in virtual group experiences, such as trainings or seminars, without risk of coronavirus infection.

VR applications allow the creation of interactive and personalized 360 experiences.

In addition, session leaders can interact with each participant and perceive their non-verbal language.

In this way, they can solve doubts, carry out interactive group dynamics and analyze the position of the participants to know if they are paying attention.

These virtual experiences also allow control of the content shown to employees.

The VR allows us to apply individual interactions in real time to solve the doubts of each user. In addition, each participant can be offered individual and personalized content.

Therefore, employees from different departments in the company can participate in a single training, thus reducing the number of training and improving productivity.

Virtual reality, a technology adapted to streaming

The success of meetings, conferences and training in virtual reality is due to the capacity of this technology to generate streaming audiovisual content.

Using VR, users can interact with live 360º videos with high quality surround sound.

In addition, TwoReality develops 360º video players adapted to the needs of each company.

These players are compatible with the main virtual reality devices on the market, such as Oculus or Google cardboard.

For all these reasons, virtual reality is the best solution to minimize the effects of coronavirus on the profitability of companies.

P.S. if you are interested in getting involved with Virtual reality in education, you can click the link here: https://simlabit.com/pilot-vr-editor

If you are interested in creating your own virtual reality laboratory, we also create free plans for that. To get your free plan, click on the link below.

Get Your Free VR Lab Plan