when the real merges with the virtual

Spatial computing is revolutionizing interactions by merging the physical and digital world, leveraging extended reality and sensors to create never-before-seen immersive experiences and transform business processes.

By Antoine Gourévitch, Senior Associate Director, BCG
and Martin Barthel Associate Director at BCG

A winning business strategy is based on the ability to appropriate new technologies, identify the most promising use cases, quickly launch feasibility projects and successfully deploy them at scale. In this increasingly sustained race, impossible today to ignore spatial computing. By merging the digital world and the physical world, this innovation opens up a field of new interactions between people, machines, objects and their environment by relying on extended reality technologies (virtual, augmented and mixed reality) and the sensors.

As science fiction authors imagined, spatial computing allows you to no longer be “ in front » content, but “ In ” A content. By identifying their position in space, virtual objects integrate and interact with the real world. If its potential draws still unknown boundaries, we have already entered this new era of computing.

After the pandemic, the buzz around the metaverse provided a glimpse of a space in which users, via their avatars, can live experiences in different virtual universes. The entertainment sector has already seized the opportunities offered by extended reality technologies. In mass consumption, groups such as the furniture specialists Ikea and Crate & Barrel, the American optician Warby Parker, and Nike are already using augmented reality to enrich the customer experience. Our latest analyzes estimate the spatial computing market to be worth $138 billion (including $74 billion in the B to B segment), driven by annual growth of 38% by 2030.

Having remained dormant for a long time, this innovation is now benefiting from decisive advances for its adoption by companies. His schedule is accelerating. Tech giants are launching their devices on the market one after the other. In January 2023, the virtual headset developed by the start-up Magic Leap obtained permission to enter the operating theaters. In October of the same year, the Meta group offered its new product Meta Quest 3 which integrates a platform facilitating its deployment at scale in organizations. Finally, the highly anticipated and highly publicized release of the mixed reality headset Apple Vision Pro in February announced a new generation of devices which, based on the iPhone or Apple Watch model, will promote the democratization of uses.

In businesses, spatial computing promises to become a collaborative partner off our screens, just as generative artificial intelligence already is on them. A powerful lever for transforming our working methods capable of generating still unsuspected gains in productivity and creativity.

But this technology alone cannot achieve the expected change. This will be the result of the combination of generative AI, the Internet of Things, robotics, the 5G network, Web 3.0 and extended reality. In this future, spatial computing, by merging the real world and the virtual world, creates the link between these technologies and draws their full potential. To prepare, businesses must begin to identify use cases within their organizations.

These are organized around five main categories which can serve as a guide in developing a strategy: operational processes; innovation; Training ; remote collaborative work; and entertainment.

Some have already proven themselves. Learning and skills development are thus done more quickly and efficiently. People who train through spatial computing learn four times faster than others and are 40% more confident in their abilities.

Generative AI, combined with 3D representations, stimulates creativity and accelerates iteration, prototyping and development processes. Companies that experiment with it therefore equip themselves with a strategic asset that is not only powerful, but transformative. A bold move to win tomorrow!

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