Does Commercial Real Estate Have An Augmented Reality Problem?

Ever since Pokémon GO burst onto the scene nearly three years ago, the concept of Augmented Reality (or AR) has been firmly entrenched in the collective consciousness of retailers and property owners alike. As you might expect, the brands themselves have been quick to incorporate the technology with retailers like Ikea, Sephora, and Anthropologie all getting into the mix. This isn’t surprising given that 100 million people are expected to shop using AR by 2020. That’s a major slice of the pie that retailers will want to engage with. What’s more, according to a soon to be released JLL consumer survey, 75 percent of consumers want interactive technology like AR in their stores – so the demand is clearly growing. It’s also significantly more people than the other reality in this mix, that being the “virtual” kind – or VR for short. Of course, the VR numbers are also impressive at roughly 43 million users per month, but, in their latest report, eMarketer curbed their VR user forecast while upping their AR one. This makes sense as it is a question of accessibility and ease. Read more at Forbes.