VR/AR/MR Predictions For The Future Of Communications

How will we be communicating in 2020? When a new platform emerges in the consumer world, new ways of communication are usually created. The PC and internet first led to email, followed by social networking. Mobile led to messaging. The advent of VR/AR/MR will lead to the creation of something new yet again. I recently tried the Microsoft HoloLens and from my experience, I was immediately convinced that AR/MR is the future platform. This led me to think about what this platform will enable for communications in the future. Here is my list of predictions and opportunities: Virtual Reality Before we jump into AR/MR, let’s cover virtual reality. By VR, I’m referring to products such as Oculus, Vive, and Playstation VR. I believe gaming and entertainment, rather than communications and productivity, will be the major verticals that will see traction in VR. My reasoning is fairly straightforward: these are not devices people will want to wear day in and day out. Conversely, AR/MR has the potential to become daily devices because of their anthropomorphic properties. In other words, AR/MR headsets will be worn throughout the day, just like the way we wear a watch or pair of glasses. AR/MR AR/MR is the ideal platform for the evolution and unfolding of the future of communications. By my predictions, the communication suite of the future will have 5 categories: OS with Artificial Intelligence Conversational Augmentation Telepresence Messaging Email OS with Artificial Intelligence What might this look like? Think Siri+Clippy or better yet, Jarvis in Iron Man. In the future, OS with artificial intelligence will be available to start new communications and to alert you of all incoming communication requests. In real-time, the OS will know what you are doing and provide tailored notifications based on message content and your availability (i.e., will not interrupt a real-life conversation or delay urgent messages). Example 1: If I’m speaking with a friend, the OS knows not to interrupt me for a non-urgent, low priority message. The OS will provide an alert when I’m done chatting and available to respond. Example 2: If I’m speaking with a friend and an urgent, high priority message arrives from my boss, the OS knows to provide an alert and will not delay notification. Companies working in this space include: api.ai, AiroCorp, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Fin, Mark Zuckerberg’s AI Butler, and Viv. Conversational Augmentation Similar to the visuals seen in Terminator, RoboCop or Iron Man, conversational augmentation will provide useful data during virtual or real-time communication. Here are a few visuals and example use cases. Example 1: If you’re talking to a client and they mention their children, conversational augmentation will automatically display relevant supplementary information (e.g., children’s names, ages, upcoming birthdays, interests). Example 2: If you’re talking to an employee you manage and they become flustered, conversational augmentation will provide an alert and suggest tips on how to diffuse the situation. Example 3: If you’re talking to a team member and the other person mentions to-do items, conversational augmentation will automatically aggregate the tasks in list format. After you finish, you will have the option to have the items automatically added to your team’s task management application. The use cases are endless. The aforementioned features and examples will be critical in making AR/MR hardware an all-day necessity. I believe that requiring a user to repeatedly put on and take off a device will be a barrier to long-term adoption, as it will become a nuisance and users will quickly revert back to their old ways. Telepresence If you aren’t familiar with the term telepresence, it refers to a communication experience between two geographically distributed people that feels like a face-to-face conversation. Related efforts in this space include: DVE 3D CreateSpace, 8i, Lytro immerge, Microsoft Research, occipital structure (sensor, sdk and core) and itSeez3D. Messaging Similar to the need for an email client, there will be a messaging client to allow for short-form, real-time messaging between one or more people. This may use text, photos, or video formats. Related efforts in this space include: None. Clients will be built by each hardware manufacturer. Email Existing communication apps rarely go away as platforms emerge and unsurprisingly, email is not going anywhere. The platform of the future will require an async means of communication. An email experience will be required to move people from their existing platforms, including PCs/phones/tablets. Related efforts in this space: None. Clients will initially be built by each hardware manufacturer. Wrap up Let me know if I’m missing a product category or if you know of any companies that should be listed. I’ll update the list!