Image Source: NBC News

“You want to play a board game? You snap your fingers, and here’s the board game. You want to watch TV? You don’t need a physical hardware TV, you buy a one-dollar app ‘TV’ and put it on the wall.” — Mark Zuckerburg, 2017

In the past year, augmented reality has show signs that it is growing out of its infancy. From Apple’s ARKit being released to Magic Leap naming their first device, Augmented Reality technology is improving and moving closer to the consumer markets. Some estimate that in 2025, 500 million digital headsets will be sold.

The effects of a growing augmented reality industry on the world economy will be far-reaching and unparalleled; the early signs of which are already beginning to show. According to a Deloitte survey of Mid-Market companies, over 50% of respondents have already begun AR/VR pilots, while 33% said they were already in the deployment stage. And following data from Statista, in a medium-adoption scenario, AR will be a $15.6B/yr industry by 2020; in a high-adoption scenario, this number jumps to $29.5B/yr .

Below is a selection of industries which are prime to be transformed by AR, along with concrete examples of how AR may affect them.