Is virtual reality the future of remote work?
How many of us now consider Zoom meetings a normal part of our everyday lives as more of us work remotely?
According to an estimate by career website Ladders, 25% of all professional jobs in North America are remote. Many times this includes using video conferencing sites to collaborate, but some companies take it a step further and use the power of virtual reality to get their work done.
In 2018, VR revenue from businesses was $829 million, according to Metaverse research company ARtillery Intelligence. Next year, that number is expected to grow to $4.26 billion, and by the year 2030, 23.5 million jobs worldwide are expected to use VR and augmented reality in their daily work.
“For us, we’ve had two years of nothing but exponential growth,” said Christoph Fleischmann, CEO of Arthur, a company that developed VR technology for companies to use. “You can hardly find a Fortune 500 company that doesn’t have a dedicated [extended reality] team. So, it’s probably about 95, 98% of these companies have an XR team, but if you compare it to three years ago, it’s a big difference.”
Fleischmann founded Arthur in 2016 when the headsets used to enter the virtual world were not so compact and easy to use. Now his company is pouring resources into making it even friendlier to the uninitiated.
Every Friday, Arthur has his 60-person workforce file into a virtual auditorium for team meetings. Users can raise their hands, manipulate documents and interact with each other as if they were in person. When you think of other use cases for spaces like this, classrooms, Ted Talks and even conferences, the future can sound quite exciting.
“It’s really nice, because you already know where people are sitting and then they raise their hands, and it has this dynamic that you really only know from physical offices,” said Fleischmann.
Video conferencing might let you share your screen, but in VR you can pull up and manipulate documents with your hands for everyone to see in ways you might not be able to over a computer.
“There’s something going on in our minds that tells us, ‘Hey, you’re present here and even though we have these avatars and everything isn’t photorealistic yet, there’s this power of the medium itself,'” he said. said.
Now there are concerns about this technology. What is the practicality of buying these headsets for hundreds, if not thousands, of employees? What is the cost? How do we prevent users from becoming addicted to the virtual world?
Fleischmann believes this will be addressed as we learn more about this medium.
