What I Learned From Interviewing 50 Experts in the AR Industry By Yoni Binstock

I have been extraordinarily lucky to have had the opportunity to interview over 50 CEOs, designers, professors, community builders, developers, and speakers in the augmented reality field. By putting their answers together, I’ve just published the book “What is Augmented Reality? Everything You Wanted to Know Featuring Exclusive Interviews With the Leaders of the AR Industry”. While I encourage you to get the book and learn what all these amazing individuals have to say, here is a few things that I’ve learned from my conversations with them.

In the next coming years, AR will be widespread and part of our lives

One question I asked all these experts was, ‘What are your predictions for the AR industry and technology in the next 2, 10, and 25 years?’. Chris Madsen — CEO at Digital Realities wrote ‘The web will have matured to be spatially immersive and navigable. Our physical environment will be painted with interactive data. The ability to easily attend and project live events in 3D will help drive adoption and headsets will get traction as an important and essential communication device.’

Many others had similar sentiments like Matt Miesnieks — CEO at 6D.ai who wrote ‘The next 2 years are about solving the hard problems creating compelling hardware & content. 10 years out, we’ll all have a pair of AR glasses. In 25 years, we’ll be working on what comes next (maybe contact lenses or brain interfaces).’

While there have been false starts in this industry, (ie. Google Glasses), with the rapidly decreasing cost of hardware, more consumer-friendly headsets, and content being created by thousands of companies and individual developers, AR is poised to become an integral part of our lives in the coming years.

AR is poised to radically change our society, for good and bad.

Another question I asked was ‘What do you think will be the positive and negative consequences of living in an augmented reality future?’ Given how we’ve recently learned how the internet can be controlled by governments and that the companies who manage our data have not acted in our best interest, I wanted to see how the experts saw how augmented reality was going to be a tool for good or for evil.

A great response was from Scott McCormick — CEO at Emergent Enterprise Consulting who answered with ‘It will provide richer experiences for travelers as they move within a new location; it will allow people to complete tasks they never thought possible by following a checklist of steps as they solve problems; it will enable workers to be better at their jobs through collaborative sharing and it will deliver real-time critical information for emergencies, disasters, and military conflicts to users who need it to save lives.’

On the other side of the spectrum, was by Ákos Maróy — Founder and CEO at Aero Glass who wrote ‘The negative consequence will be that our vision and other senses will be utilized as the most valuable ‘real estate’ in the attention industry. We will be constantly bombarded by tailored advertisement and messaging without the ability to turn it off ’.

Like any technology, it doesn’t inherently have a good or bad aspect to it. It’s how we as individuals, communities, companies, and countries utilize it that will determine it’s positive or detrimental effects on our world. Corporations will always seek to maximize profit and governments will seek to use it for control of their citizens, so it will be up to us to fight back against those impulses and to show how AR can make this world beautiful and full of timely and relevant information.

Anyone, including you, can enter the AR field.

One thing I wanted to make sure my readers got was actionable suggestions on how they could enter the AR industry, so I asked the experts — ‘What do you recommend for people who want to get into the AR field?’. I got some great responses from folks like Alice Bonasio — Immersive Technology Consultant and Editor-in-Chief of Tech Trends who said ‘Pick a subject you’re passionate and knowledgeable about, and think about how AR technology could potentially add to that. Look at what others are doing in your field and be open-minded about the possibilities. The technology will evolve, but the principle of mixing the digital and real worlds is the core of it, so as long as you understand this and get used to thinking about the possibilities creatively, you will be able to adapt to those changes and create great products.’

Carli Johnston — Co-founder & CXO at Virtual Method and Co-founder of Women In AR/VR, Australia had a similar sentiment when she wrote ‘Watch the videos, and download the apps. AR is highly visual, but it’s also kinetic. You need to understand what works and doesn’t work ‘experientially’. There are far too many people who look at the spatial world through a 2D lens’’.

Because this field is so new, no one in the field has studied AR in an academic setting and we’re all building this industry and technology as we go. There are many examples to try and supplementary technologies and ideas to learn. Anyone can be a part of this community.

Augmented reality is poised to not only change how we interact with our computer interfaces but change the nature of our reality. I invite you to be a part of movement designing our AR future. Through diversity and inclusion from people all around the world and from varying professions and background, we can create an augmented reality world that future generations will be proud of. If you want to read more about augmented reality, click here to get the book now on Amazon.