Immersive Technology Can Have Some Practical Mainstream Use in the Enterprise
This is a topic that immediately conjures up visions of “Matrix” style virtual reality and of course, we’ve all been to industry events and worn odd looking goggles as well as played on Nintendo Wii and Xbox Kinect. But therein lies the rub, there’s always a danger of over hyping technology themes, beyond their obvious enterprise value, in anything but niche scientific and creative industries.
Interestingly though, Gartner have started to talk about immersive technologies as more of a collection of subset elements, amongst which is AI and of course that’s a technology that will always be somewhat at the heart of a successful real-world implementation of process and experience immersion.
So my question is, looking past the hype, does that add credence to thinking differently about the way we engage in Augmented Reality, creating new, hyper personalised and, situationally aware ways to surface insight, without necessarily needing exotic end-use devices.
There are already many AR examples that don’t require “massive glasses” on all the time, that we all have some experience of as consumers, for instance: -
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Retail apps and website functions that can use a device camera to super-impose clothes and accessories onto your image.
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Google Maps, providing an incredibly useful situational overlay when out and about.
This does give some hope to the opportunities to start exploiting AR with the devices that we are already using and, comfortable with, injecting situational intelligence directly into that point of visualisation. In terms of putting this into practice, many organisations are recognising field force use cases that utilise AR techniques, as probably the most obvious starting point.
Putting this into a policing context, the device and intelligence technologies already exist that would allow AR style situational overlays to support things on patrol such as: -
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Real-time language translation and knowledge/insight on culture, custom and traditions.
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Real-time insight and, use of geographic data, analytics, and reporting.
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Real-time Traffic Information/Incident awareness.
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Information gathering potential cued by process management.
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Real-time monitoring of activity, blending bodycam devices to data elements.
In the end though, whether using everyday devices or emerging more specialised AR optics it’s always going to come back to what the data tells you and what action you’re going to take. In that sense, the best mix of human/machine teaming for actionable data insight comes from AI driven data and decisioning systems that can easily integrate with edge channels and devices .
Fundamentally though, this needs to be a bi-directional integration, principally because, in the past couple of years, unprecedented progress has occurred with AI and machine learning technologies, which need a steady stream of new data to stay ahead of the curve.
Deep learning can be used to deliver services such as interpreting, synthesising and imitating speech for real-time translation, interpreting context and sentiment in writing or conversation, and analysing real-world images and videos to recognise objects, movements and emotions. All of which could have utility “in the field”
In the end though, I guess my main message is that although there is without a doubt a way to adopt immersive technology now on everyday devices and, the market will definitely evolve to make more sophisticated end use devices more common place. However, there is still a fundamental need for underlying intelligent AI driven knowledge, process orchestration and, data management systems, to be able to composite data and, insights and deliver them on demand and in context to these devices.
For this reason its important to establish this foundation first to ensure business benefit from AR, including API and MashUp capabilities, that allow you to surface insight in new and engaging ways, overlayed onto real-world context in a sustainable, governable and structured way. This will make for a value based evolution of your immersive technology strategy from there.
Author:
Pete Wilson Pegasystems EMEA Public Sector Industry Architect
Georgie Morgan
Georgie joined techUK as the Justice and Emergency Services (JES) Programme Manager in March 2020, then becoming Head of Programme in January 2022.