Immersive environments and spaces in the corporate landscape deliver a host of benefits to businesses and their teams. Combining cutting-edge innovations in artificial intelligence, extended reality, and the metaverse, these spaces can adapt to various use cases.
With the right technology, companies can build, customize, and deploy spaces for collaboration, employee training, and customer service. As the future of work evolves, organizations discover that immersive tech paves the way to greater productivity, reduced costs, and growth opportunities.
The rising adoption of these solutions has revealed various vital trends, demonstrating what the future of immersive environments may hold. Here are some trends that will influence the rise of immersive spaces in 2024 and beyond.
1. Immersive Environments Transform Offices
When immersive environments began entering the workplace, they offered companies an innovative way to connect distributed workers. Immersive spaces allow teams worldwide to share resources and collaborate in a digital environment.
While the benefits of immersive environments for collaboration are still evident today, companies are also exploring ways of using technology to make the office environment more appealing. Building an “immersive space” into a physical office allows companies to design an ever-evolving, scalable, and agile workplace to suit a wide range of employees.
These team members can use these environments to collaborate with external contacts, explore training opportunities, and even design products in a digital space. Immersive tech will ensure companies can continue to design inclusive environments that appeal to all staff members.
2. Hardware for Immersive Experiences Evolves
The hardware employees use to navigate and explore immersive spaces has become increasingly advanced in recent years. Vendors are investing heavily in developing solutions that address the issues of previous wearables and headsets, such as VR sickness.
We’re seeing an increase in organizations building headsets that appeal to specific use cases, such as ruggedized devices for the industrial metaverse. As well as an increase in the number of lightweight and comfortable smart glasses available for AR immersion. Not only are headsets growing more comfortable, powerful, and innovative, but accessories in this landscape are evolving, too.
Leaders in the immersive landscape are investing in developing haptic technologies like VR gloves and body suits. Others are building more advanced sensors for tracking body movement and treadmills for enhanced immersion and safety in VR.
3. The Interaction of AR, VR, and Spatial Computing
One of the ways vendors in the XR landscape transform how users experience immersive environments is by consolidating and combining different forms of tech. The number of businesses investing in AR/VR headsets, which allow users to control their level of immersion in real time, is increasing. We’ve seen evidence of this with the Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro.
These solutions allow users to switch between different types of immersive experiences based on their needs and goals. Additionally, more companies are beginning to invest in advanced spatial computing techniques to alter how we interact with immersive environments.
Spatial computing solutions for things like hand and eye tracking deepen the level of immersion users feel in a virtual environment by removing the need for controllers. They also create a more natural experience when interacting with documents and other users in a virtual space.
4. Immersive Environments Grow More Flexible
While interest in immersive environments in the enterprise landscape has grown, some organizations have struggled to take advantage of the technology. Every business has unique use cases and goals to consider when creating an immersive space.
As a result, vendors are exploring new ways to make these environments more customizable. Metaverse as a service solutions are emerging to reduce the cost and complexity of creating immersive spaces. Low-code and no-code platforms allow organizations to adapt their environments with unique content and experiences.
We’re even seeing the rise of more flexible software solutions capable of integrating with a wide range of business apps and solutions with minimal complexity. This flexible development approach could help improve accessibility to immersive spaces in the years ahead.
5. Generative AI Enhances Spaces
Immersive technologies and artificial intelligence have long been closely connected. Countless companies offering immersive headsets and software solutions leverage artificial intelligence to give users access to in-depth analytics and virtual assistants.
The rise of generative AI and large language models has drawn more attention to this trend. Generative AI solutions can empower companies to develop immersive environments more efficiently and effectively, with access to rapid code and content development solutions.
Generative AI offerings can even allow organizations to build highly intuitive “characters” for the virtual world that can assist teams in unlocking productivity and enhancing immersive training. These characters can even help companies deliver exceptional customer experiences in virtual environments.
6. Increasing Focus on User Safety and Security
The rising potential of immersive environments to enhance the “future of work” brings new challenges for companies to consider. Many immersive spaces in the corporate world rely on access to the internet and large volumes of data. This is particularly true when those solutions are infused with artificial intelligence.
This means companies must think carefully about protecting their data, remaining compliant with industry standards, and defending employee wellbeing in an immersive space. Guardrails and procedures need to be implemented to help minimize the potential for harm.
At the same time, companies need to ensure they’re implementing the proper protections to defend their data and intellectual property from criminals in cyberspace. This will lead to developing new guidelines for ensuring safety in the enterprise metaverse.
The Future of Immersive Environments
Immersive environments and spaces hold incredible potential for businesses looking to improve collaboration, productivity, training, and customer experiences. As the technology in this landscape continues to evolve, the impact of immersive spaces on the future of work will grow.
If you’re exploring the benefits of immersive technology for your business, consider the trends above when searching for the most innovative solutions.
