Entry to New Realities Cannot Remain Restricted

Editor’s note: Today’s column is part of a series with Snap on augmented reality. Below, Kimberlee Archer, global head of AR, camera and platforms marketing, showcases the technology's built-in accessibility and its already massive uptake among creators and consumers. It’s interesting how often people bucket augmented reality with virtual reality, which has been increasingly more common with the enthusiasm surrounding the metaverse. However, these emerging technologies are on two very divergent paths to mass adoption. Many blame the struggle to bring VR to the masses on the slow advancement of technology, when in fact it has more to do with the slow adoption of experiences. This is because adoption is dependent on another A-word—access—both for developers bringing this innovation to life and consumers buying it. But here lies the problem with VR that no one seems to be talking about: The barrier to entry for developers and consumers is disproportionately higher than that of AR. The quote from William Gibson we XR folks love to surface goes, “The future is already here—it's just not evenly distributed.” This rings true because historically, access to new technology has not been evenly distributed either. Access is the fastest path to adoption for any new technology—while it's cool to create amazing virtual worlds, what's the point if access to new realities remains restricted? It’s Time to Reframe How We Think About Augmented Reality Access for developers is crucial. Developers are catalysts for innovation and creativity, which results in diversity of use cases and breadth of content. It's imperative to attract developers from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds to build experiences that attract and retain a wide variety of users. Access for consumers is even more important. Consumers need to be able to afford hardware in order to access experiences, and if they don’t find value in those experiences, they will not retain. It's imperative that there is a wide variety of content that represents their cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in order to drive adoption. Most VR developers realize the need to pursue advanced degrees in computer engineering or game design to be able to build compelling VR experiences. Meanwhile, most AR developers are self-taught, at no cost outside the time spent watching online tutorials and reading documentation. Although the price of a VR headset has fallen significantly over the years, there is still a need for incremental investment in order to gain access. Meanwhile, AR can run on everything from wearables to your phone, allowing for more broad distribution and access. And when you consider 83% of the world’s population owns a smartphone, the AR adoption opportunity becomes very clear. AR technology allows more developers with diverse backgrounds to create inclusive and authentic content that organically resonates with consumers that share their culture, demographic or geographic region. This not only builds an inclusive ecosystem, it positively impacts the bottom line—I’ve seen time and time again how Snap lenses that incorporate cultural relevance to specific geographies consistently outperform generic ones. Lenses built by certain demographics drive engagement with cohorts of consumers that share their characteristics. The best part is that AR’s path to mass adoption isn’t a decade away. This computing revolution is happening now, on hundreds of millions of smartphones, billions of times a day. And this is only the beginning: According to Deloitte, about 2.2 billion people use AR frequently, and they expect that usage to grow to 4.3 billion by 2025, accounting for nearly 75% of the global population and almost all people on social communication apps. This is in drastic contrast to VR, which is expected to ship 14.9 million devices this year and 43.9 million by 2025. Yes, VR will play a significant role in our future, but AR is already transforming communication and commerce today. Access is one thing that could accelerate adoption of VR as well. It would be wise to rethink how to build a more inclusive ecosystem for VR that truly provides access for the many audiences we serve. Because without access, we cannot innovate, we cannot scale and, ultimately, we cannot bring humanity into new realities. Instead, we will be anchored in this reality, regardless of the virtual worlds we create. That’s what’s so exciting about AR—it’s the technology of the future that’s already here. It can democratize access to creators and consumers, accelerate adoption and finally manifest in offering every human the equal opportunity to experience its benefits. The Future of Commerce Is Already Here

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Entry to New Realities Cannot Remain Restricted

In the case of AR, access equals adoption

Kimberlee Archer

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Kimberlee Archer