Superpowers: No surgery required
As has been widely reported, many jobs requiring repetitive tasks have been, and continue to be, eliminated at a rapid pace. Robots empowered with artificial intelligence can perform many tasks faster, better, and cheaper than humans. However, there is a bright spot in our technologically advanced future, one which empowers human workers in many occupations to excel with superhuman capabilities. One example that may come to your mind is Elon Musk’s new venture, Neuralink, which is reportedly developing "neural lace" technology: electrodes implanted in the brain, which will allow people to communicate directly with machines without a physical interface.
This research sounds very promising, but there is a technology wave underway that has the potential to link computers with humans in better ways without resorting to brain surgery. This wave has been formed by the confluence of Augmented Reality (AR) and increasingly advanced smart glasses.
Simply put, AR is the combination of the physical world with the virtual world. Think of AR as an overlay onto the physical world. A simple and interesting example is Wayfair’s app where a consumer can project a couch they are considering into their living room to see if it fits with their room’s layout and décor.
Think of smart glasses as the next evolution in computing where humans no longer have to adapt to the computer – with smart glasses the computer adapts to the human in a wearable form, leaving him or her hands-free to perform complex tasks. Most applications on smart glasses are voice enabled and some support sophisticated gestures and object interactions. In their most basic form you have what amounts to a heads up display with the ability to get information on demand anywhere and anytime.
Smart glasses come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and capabilities, with different missions in mind. There are lightweight glasses like Vuzix’s M300, which are suitable for mobile professionals who need a lightweight, slim form factor and flexibility in configuration. Similarly, Google Glass has transitioned from being a consumer oriented device to one now targeted at business applications.
At the other end of the spectrum is Microsoft’s Hololens, which offers very sophisticated spatial mapping, mixed reality capabilities, and advanced gesturing. Its form factor and cost lends itself to specific applications where accurately placed and detailed 3D rendering is a priority. The smart glass market continues to heat up with major players like Intel, Apple and Samsung either announcing glasses or poised to introduce a new entry into the market.
Business use cases leveraging smart glasses have grown over the past few years and continue to build. For example, an aircraft assembly technician can use AR to view how a part fits into an existing physical structure like an airplane fuselage. Likewise, field service personnel performing complex repair or service tasks can obtain diagnostic steps, specifications or step-by-step maintenance instructions for sophisticated equipment (aircraft, heavy equipment, advanced power generation units, life sciences lab equipment). Most of the applications now include telepresence capabilities where field personnel can connect to remote experts anywhere in the world with “you-see-what-I-see” capabilities.
As this technology becomes more sophisticated and powerful, new applications will surface that are yet to be conceived. One of the latest is leveraging IoT (Internet of Things) technology with AR. For example, a technician could look at an engine to see oil pressure and temperature data overlaid onto physical sensors. I expect that more companies will put this emerging technology to work in unexpected and novel ways.
The implications of this technology wave are significant for businesses. As is often said in sports, “A team is only as strong as its weakest link.” With smart glasses and AR, we now have the opportunity to raise the skill level of many team members within an enterprise. Even the most inexperienced personnel can gain an immediate level of higher competency with smart glasses and AR. This will make available visual, audio, and text instructions to perform complex tasks with on-demand guidance and information. The result is that the entire enterprise benefits as desk-less professionals at all skill levels can obtain an immediate boost in competence.
And from an organizational perspective, this translates into immediate gains in effectiveness and efficiencies impacting key operational metrics by:
- reducing error rates
- increasing first time resolution rates
- reducing job completion times
The numbers reported from early trials and deployments are impressive with these key metrics improving in many cases by more than 30 to 50 percent.
What is even more important however, is that each and every individual worker is empowered to not only compete in an increasingly complex work environment, but to excel with capabilities that smart glasses combined with AR bestow upon its wearers. Stay tuned as this technology and practical business applications continue to advance.