CGS has integrated its XR tools into employee training programmes, the company announced Wednesday ahead of the Augmented World Expo (AWE) 2023.
The firm is a major provider of industry-first extended reality (XR) Immersive Learning-as-a-Service (ILaaS) solutions. These include applications, outsourcing services, and enterprise learning tools — many of which the company will showcase at the event this week.
The measure aims to remove obstacles to drive adoption, digital transformation, and speed-to-performance pipelines across industry verticals.
Global workforces can now leverage CGS’s TeamworkAR and LauchpadXR platforms to launch, scale up, and deploy learning tools. Using virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), clients for the New York City-based firm can tap the new features to instruct and upskill their workforces.
Clients of the company also include major organisations and firms like McDonald’s, the American Red Cross (ARC), Scoot Airlines, and many others. These clients rely on CGS’s full-scale XR technologies, avoiding the investment and setup costs companies traditionally use for their XR hardware, software, content, and other uses.
What’s in the Solution?
Firstly, CGS’s ILaaS solution offers bespoke AR content via training materials and modules across iOS, Android, browser-based platforms, and wearables.
The company also provides logistics and device management to deploy solutions and manage them remotely. This is also executed via device supply chain management, including shipping, warehousing, and updates.
CGS also provides device sanitation, repair, recovery, and replacement services for clients.
After receiving the devices, the solution is ready out of the box, with minimal adjustment requirements. This also provides onboarding, virtual on-demand training, workshops, and simulations.
Trainees can monitor and report progress via CGS’s hardware and software solutions. This creates learner outcomes and effective business reports to monitor progress and ROI.
At the event, it will demo its ILaaS training solution in partnership with Singaporean budget carrier Scoot, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines. The demo will showcase the efficacy of generative AI and mixed reality (MR) solutions, which have led to immense results across metrics, including cost savings and learner retention.
The demo comes after a Deloitte study found that, by 2030, soft-skill jobs will reach 63 percent of all roles. Additional Harvard University research found that sufficient and soft and people skill would increase job success by 85 percent.
The study also found that the soft skills training market had topped $23 billion USD. Analysts predict the market will surpass $47 billion USD by 2027, with immersive soft skill training becoming the largest untapped opportunity for enterprises.
Comments on CGS training and ILaaS Solution
Doug Stephen, President of Enterprise Learning, CGS explained how ILaaS had become an “exciting solution” for firms seeking XR to onboard, train, and improve their teams’ performance.
He added,
“TeamworkAR by CGS provides everything needed to quickly design and launch enterprise immersive experiences – from designing and testing the proof of concept through full-service logistics and content creation with leading hardware and software partners such as Google, Hololens, Matterport, Meta, RealWear, ServiceNow, and Twilio”
Stephen explained further that the solutions were “especially beneficial” for large firms. Companies seeking the proper tools could leverage CGS solutions to execute collaboration “at scale,” he added. This aimed to reduce traditional methods’ costs, risks, complications, and time-to-performance.
He added: “It allows them to pilot MR and demonstrate [return on investment (ROI)] without the headache of procuring devices they might not need in the future.”
Eric Abbruzzese, Research Director, ABI Research, added that training and remote assistance tools “prevail” across the industry. This comes as AR/VR technologies revealed high positive value for companies, and “streamlining access to those use cases only strengthens that value.”
He concluded,
“Ensuring interoperability and integration with existing systems and devices can be challenging, but having a flexible portfolio with professional service support is a boon for any company at any stage of XR maturity”
CGS will demo its solutions at AWE 2023 to note the solution’s ROI to thousands of attendees.
CGS President Commentary Ahead of the AWE 2023
XR Today interviewed Doug Stephen, President of Enterprise Learning, CGS, ahead of the AWE 2023. In the discussion, he explained how his company’s solution could track all activities in the training module.
Training modules remained engaging but also covered a “learning record store” to determine interactions with the creative content. Trainers could use this to recall errors and resolve training difficulties for clients.
He explained the recording storage process further, stating the company deals with “84 of the Fortune 500 companies, so [wqe] can’t have these monolithic systems sitting alone.”
Stephen added: “They have to connect to the human resource system that connects to the learning systems. It’s something that when we talk about this whole ILaaS, it’s not just about making the experience great”
CGS ILaaS and the Meta Presence Platform
When asked whether the ILaaS service leveraged Meta’s Presence Platform to boost hand-tracking functionality, Stephen replied, “One hundred percent.”
Explaining further, he said:
“Hand tracking [was] the biggest change we made, because the one previous complaint we had was that the controls are nice, but don’t give you the same feeling of actually working with the equipment. Once we included it, it used more system resources, but really made the difference in the engagement”
Additionally, CGS remained a member of the OpenAI Foundation for over two years, Stephen explained. The membership resulted from a massive need to “revolutionise soft skills training in a mixed [reality] environment, using generative AI.”
In the Scoot use case, the module involved volumetrically capturing the interior of a Boeing 787. CGS could include avatars in the scanned environment. Using the generative AI tools, instructors could train staff in crying children, safety, and soft skill conversations with XR tools.
Concluding, he said,
They’ll be able to go to a coach recording the [conversation] voice-to-text, send it back, look at general AI, taking the information and give them advice on how they could do it better. That is where we think it’s going to explode because you can suddenly do interactive communication and soft skill at scale, cost-effectively and without having a live coach, which all of a sudden drops the audience down from the sea level right down to the rank and file.
Finally, he added that CGS planned to upscale its products to the Meta Quest Pro. This included the upcoming Quest 3 mixed reality headset, expected to offer massive improvements over the Quest 2.
Additional headsets included Lenovo hardware, which XR Today understands includes the ThinkReality VRX mixed reality and A3 augmented reality devices.
Those interested in testing the solution can visit booth 524 at the AWE or their website for further information.
