Augmented Reality: Vision, Results and Tips

Augmented Reality: Vision, Results and Tips

“You mean to tell me that we can put any virtual content into reality? Is a sheet of paper with a black and white drawing enough to do the magic?”


Almost ten years have passed since we heard these words, and even today we are still excited to think about how many projects can be developed and the potential of this new mass-media that is allowing us to achieve ambitious goals in all market sectors. Since that day we are no longer the same, we no longer have the same vision. That day, driven by the cyberpunk cinema and literature of our childhood, we realized that the possibilities were endless. The change that had just begun was an opportunity that had not been seen since the heyday of the Internet.

Every revolution brings with it the seeds of evolution and we absolutely had to participate.

This is why we chose augmented reality: because it is a technological construct that is rooted in the history of computing and a vision of a fascinating future, of which we want to be protagonists and an active part.

We firmly believe that the difficulty of Industry 4.0 today lies in the inability to focus on the near future. Perhaps because, unlike the big American brands, here we always lack a fundamental role in the big brands: that of the “futurist”, the non-technical technician, who becomes the spokesperson and oracle of the way forward.

That is why we have decided to open our agency TwoReality with the vision and mission to explore and expand the role that technological innovation will play in the field of communication.

The first first movers were true visionaries who created the best conditions for technology and information giants to invest sufficient sums to bring augmented reality technology to its current state: this is no longer an embryonic situation, but the beginning of an exponential curve that awaits it in the near future. Augmented reality today is the child of these technologies, which it uses to its advantage by translating them into complex but (almost) always effective forms. Today an increasing number of companies and agencies realize native experiences in augmented reality, although in reality those who have worked for many years in this industry have a vision and personally know the key figures and know very well that nothing can be invented without having a specific and deep experience. It takes experience and also the ability to direct the client’s expectations towards concrete goals, providing scalable services, without being afraid to say “no” too, if this, in the end, allows to focus the main goal in a more effective way with an even more coherent project.

Working on augmented reality projects for large companies is a source of great satisfaction because it is easy to bring tangible results to the meeting table.

It is often enough to develop a demo, if customer expectations are well defined by the briefing and ideation phases, to realize the concrete benefits that augmented reality can bring to virtually all sectors. The technological progress of the last twenty years shows that the technologies that have been successful, even if the forecasts were not the best, are those that improve production processes under a double impulse: simplification / depth. It is precisely here that augmented reality now has to work: simplification of processes and nodes of the production / design / development / training pipeline to give a complete and immediate knowledge of activities that today are abstruse, complex or organized in a way lacking from the point of view of functionality.

Marketing data is always promising,

although still the best market research is really hard to achieve and is developed only by bigdata giants (Gartner, CB Insight, etc).

We believe that in the near future the interest of even more sectors will approach this new mass media, driven by the spread of word of mouth and the concrete experiences of pioneering brands in the sector, which have had the courage and foresight to invest in the sector in recent years, to pave the way for the future of mass adoption of these technologies, always speaking in terms of brand vision b2b and not consumer product that, unfortunately, will still have many obstacles to overcome, first of all the high costs of entry level. Successful case histories are published in several newspapers, but we must be careful to evaluate the ROI with the eyes of a customer, going beyond the first point of view that is the media effect, the word of mouth, the wow effect which is much talked about today.

Vision: From the consumer’s point of view, there is still a lot to do to achieve market forecasts.

Companies that develop AR software must focus above all on the technology available on the market today and on the accessibility of these tools by the general public. In our opinion, the key words are immersion, connection and interactivity, but these must be linked to the opening of a new work methodology, just as it was for typography when digital printing was born, photography with the arrival of digital cameras, architecture with the arrival of autocad, etc. Now that new tools are taking shape, people and professionals must be allowed massive access, waiting for the arrival of high-performance devices at an affordable price: it is also necessary to increase the resolution of the devices and the power of processors. When a digital artist approaches the touch controllers for the first time and uses the viewfinder, it only takes a few moments to discover that it is the whole life that is being trained for this moment and to intuit in a visceral way the infinite power of this shocking mass-media that allows to create in an absolute way entering in its own subject without any distraction.

The future of augmented reality:

Over the next 5 years, there will be a progressive miniaturization of devices, new input methods that no longer require gesture control, and a standardization of UX and virtual interfaces. The primary market will certainly be the b2b of the enterprise industry and business applications for training and professionals, along with a new explosion (which has already begun in China) of pure entertainment b2c arcades: playful environments, escape rooms and virtual areas accessible as theme parks will know how to excite the audience, without them having to buy expensive devices that are not amortized in a way that is consistent with their cost. We are convinced that in 10 years the audience will treat VR and AR just as they treat smartphones today with their extraordinarily powerful processors that have entered our daily lives. Today we are always connected, tomorrow we will always be ready to spend in AR for a live conversation with a friend on the other side of the world or for a meeting in AR or for an online order in our trusted store.

It will be a quick, simple and immediate change.

Finally, in 25 years augmented reality will be so widespread and standardized that, if far-sighted choices have not been made to protect physical people within their real world, they will risk seeing dark areas, dangerous border areas where it will be easy to be exiled at the expense of real connections and everyday life. But in the end the technology has always been this:

a razor on which we can walk, being careful not to lose our balance.

Augmented Reality Industry


Advice for companies:

For companies wishing to enter this sector, we always recommend working with agencies that have been structured and present in this field for years, but also to tirelessly test new applications, experiment, watch immersive videos and follow the evolution of hardware and software, without being too “picky” or delicate to put it bluntly. Like all young technologies, there will be a boom of agencies and service developers followed by an exponential decline, as is the case with the world of application development or social management of brands that today is likely to face this end. You should always ask for and evaluate case studies conducted by these companies and be wary of small startups without know-how or communication agencies that, as a result of the lack of work in the field of communication and marketing, throw themselves into the world of AR VR to try to make money. In fact, we always recommend to study and develop projects that are useful for the company, and that have a measurable return and leave aside the “wow effect”, which could be effective until a few years ago but now shows its most obvious limits, as people are already sufficiently introduced to the subject.

Vision: We always expect more and more from this technology (and rightly so, I would say!).

We conclude with a practical advice: if your company has a limited budget or has a short development time, do not develop projects but you can dedicate yourselves to analyze the market to identify desires and establish appropriate deadlines and budgets for future projects: in fact, to develop these applications to perfection it takes time and adequate investment, as well as technological tools that advance in the optics of exponential growth and that, if started in a premature way, can come to an end leaving a great disappointment. Today, we have only one certainty, shared with our colleagues and collaborators, like a mantra that trusts us.

Augmented reality is, and will be, such a sweeping revolution that there will be room for everyone,

for every professional, for every brand, for every company and for every sector:

we live in the most exciting time in human history and the best is yet to come!

If you are ready to take advantage of augmented reality, TwoReality offers everything you need to start the learning process for your company.