The virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) industries have closed out another year.
The virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) industries prepare to close out another year.
Moving from hype to tangible breakthroughs, 2023 has been an exciting time for Extended Reality (XR) development in hardware and software.
ARuVR, one of the United Kingdom’s most visible and prestigious XR companies, continues to trailblaze across the Learning and Development (L&D) landscape with a series of feats and discoveries. Celebrating a prolific year of advancements in its solutions, accreditations, and partnerships, ARuVR has proven its leadership to pushing forward the potential and capacity of VR/AR/MR learning.
As the Meta Quest 3, Apple Vision Pro, HTC VIVE XR Elite, Pico 4 Enterprise, Lenovo VRX, and, most recently, the Varjo XR-4 walk the extended reality (XR) runway, a gradual but measurable uptick in renewed consumer interest in all things immersive builds momentum.
However this is only one aspect of the XR transformation, and on the B2B side the breakthroughs are even more transformational.
2024: The Year of XR Learning?
A significant wave of XR investments set to take place in 2024 is likely to be seen in immersive training and industrial maintenance operations, with Statista predicting a $4.1 billion USD uptick.
While analysts also anticipate industry verticals like VR gaming, immersive video viewing, and AR gaming for the VR/AR industry to rake in $17.6 billion USD next year, it’s the crucial competitive differentiator of XR learning where the change will be most noticeable.
With XR training, companies can rapidly deploy, upskill, monitor, and analyse learners as they prepare for their vocations and adapt to a fast-changing world. This critical component of the global workforce aims to address and tackle the ongoing skills shortage while boosting efficiencies, in a mode which drives employee retention and satisfaction due to alignment with digital native learning styles.
According to the report, these demands are set to grow significantly.
After the holidays, XR Today reflects on ARuVR’s top achievements in 2023 and their impacts on the spatial computing community. These will be the foundations of further industry-leading market growth in the 2024 and beyond.
Accreditations and Awards
LPI Accreditation: In late May of this year, ARuVR received international acclaim after the Learning and Performance Institute (LPI) awarded it Accredited Learning Technologies Provider status.
The LPI, the world’s top authority for workplace learning and upskilling, assessed ARuVR with high marks across the board, allowing the XR training firm to receive the first title for a company in its sector. Based on several key metrics, ARuVR earned near-perfect marks across metrics’ categories during its assessment.
12 Learning Excellence Awards Nominations: In an astounding clean sweep of The Learning Excellence Awards, judges shortlisted ARuVR for an unprecedented 12 categories. Many of them spanned awards such as Outstanding Innovation, Outstanding External Provider, Supply Chain, Learning Tools & Technology, Outstanding Course and Initiative, and more.
The company’s product maturity, ease of use across industry verticals, and accessibility helped ARuVR to rank exceptionally well at the awards ceremony.
Sifted Top 40 Nomination: Hot off the press, ARuVR earned further notoriety in July after Sifted, a leading publication backed by the Financial Times, recognised the XR firm as one of its Top 40 European Early-Stage Startups to Watch.
The only AR/VR learning firm to rank in the list, ARuVR also joined 13 startups picked by venture capital firms as companies to watch. World-renowned venture capital firm Amadeus Capital also picked ARuVR as one of its top three firms to watch.
GoTech and The Learning Awards: ARuVR had further reason to celebrate after bagging three awards from the Go:Tech Awards and The Learning Awards events in London.
At the first event, the firm took home the Best Use of VR/AR award for its celebrated XR training platform. Over 400 people and a star-studded roster of independent judges attended the event, where ARuVR’s solution ultimately stood out from the competition.
Additionally, the LPI’s Learning Awards saw over 800 guests worldwide come together to honour the industry’s biggest names in L&D.
Among 600 entrants, ARuVR took home a Silver prize from the event’s Learning Platform of the Year award, and a Bronze award in Digital Learning Transformation of the Year, topping companies like Dell, Radisson Hotel, WPP, and L’Oréal.
Partnerships and New Releases
City University of London: In one of its most groundbreaking accomplishments, ARuVR teamed up with the City, University of London, signalling a resounding win for the XR training sector.
ARuVR will provide its XR platform to the UK’s biggest VR, AR, and Metaverse training centre. The facility, opened at the University’s School of Science and Technology, works to transform today’s students into tomorrow’s XR innovators.
Using ARuVR’s leading technologies, the University’s new facility plans to tackle the ongoing skills shortage crisis by preparing trainees for their future STEM field careers, across a diverse range of industries.
Mintra, a Norwegian learning and development enterprise for the maritime and energy sectors, partnered with ARuVR to advance and deploy immersive training solutions to seafarers in the logistics and freighting sector.
ARuVR incorporated TrainingPortal—Mintra’s L&D platform—to receive full metric-based reports on a learner’s trajectory during their courses, offering trainees enhanced readiness for their jobs from day one of being on-site. This has led to critical successes in training workers for heavy industries requiring skills, accuracy, and safety standards.
Five Guys: A stellar use case for ARuVR’s curriculum development, Five Guys leveraged AR/VR’s learning platform in a bid to deliver consistent cooking standards across its franchises.
In an insightful conversation with Corey Smith, Instructional Designer, he explained how ARuVR’s platform helped envision fresh approaches to L&D vocational training.
In the future, the curricula could potentially ‘roll out’ across Five Guys locations to train learners wherever they are to facilitate optimal restaurant experiences.
The experience comes as ARuVR and its partners explore experiential learning in greater detail to progress the full capabilities of VR/AR instruction.
No-Code AR/VR/MR: A crowning achievement for ARuVR arrived in 2023 with advancements in no-code, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).
A critical tool for building quality content on-demand, ARuVR platform upgrades allow curricula designers to develop immersive environments, modules, and human-computer interactions without the need of any coding – dragging and dropping content to bring the vision of every creator to life.
When XR content development is not limited by specialist technical expertise, the potential across every aspect of enterprise learning is exploded. Any trainer can use ARuVR’s award-winning platform to generate entire virtual spaces, overlay digital content, adjust content to the student’s learning progress, within a completely immersive experience.
Summits and Events
3rd Annual XR L&D Summit: ARuVR also engaged with the XR training industry at their own Learning Network’s 3rd running L&D Summit.
A melting pot of use cases, success stories, tech ecosystems, and research, the event provided the global immersive tech landscape with a multitude of examples for VR and AR experts to digest, further positioning ARuVR as thought leaders in the industry as a whole.
Companies such as the Royal Air Force, BAE Systems, Five Guys, S&P Global, The AA, Mintra, and BT chipped in to share their views on the future of XR learning across retail, health and medicine, manufacturing, AEC, energy, and many other verticals.
Attendees lauded the event with praise and positive feedback as ARuVR showcased nearly 200 learning demos at the acclaimed gala.
CrewConnect Global 2023 Manila: In a major collaboration with Norwegian e-learning solutions provider Mintra, ARuVR hosted a fantastic series of discussions and networking sessions at the CrewConnect Global 2023 in November.
Taking place in the Filipino capital of Manila, the event rallied executives from the maritime industry to examine L&D initiatives with next-gen immersive learning solutions, prepared for workforces navigating the oceans around the world.
London Lord Mayor’s Show: 2023 also hallmarked the first time the Lord Mayor’s Show included an augmented reality experience—a real-time 3D (RT3D) virtual float—to commemorate the event’s rich heritage along with The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT).
ARuVR integrated its immersive technology platform for the live event, allowing thousands of onlookers to view the experience with their smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices, skyrocketing engagement for those watching the virtual scene.
The Road Ahead: ARuVR 2024 Trends and Predictions
Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest 3: Speaking to XR Today in a recent discussion, ARuVR explained how his company’s platform could massively benefit from the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3.
The two headsets are expected to expand and proliferate use cases across enterprises, institutions and governments, he explained at the time.
To take on the upskilling crisis, both the Vision Pro and Quest 3 could help companies reach greater services and performance metrics on day one of an employee’s deployment to the job.
Companies can also learn how the headsets and others can improve on existing and future XR solutions with interoperable, cutting-edge, and pioneering visions for the XR community.
2024 Predictions: In an update with XR Today’s Rory Greener, Frank Furnari, CEO and Founder, ARuVR, explained that the XR market has matured over the last few years, leading to adoption across industry verticals.
This progressed XR from XR 1.0, with simple three degrees of freedom (3DoF), basic AR experiences on smartphones and tablets, and others to XR 2.0 involving “more advanced VR using six degrees of freedom (6DoF)” and AR devices like the Microsoft HoloLens and Magic Leap, Furnari said.
“Now, we’re seeing the industry move towards XR 3.0, which is where we’re going to focus our products over the next 12 months. This is the blended convergence of experiences in VR and AR within a single immersive experience. Basically, users will not have just a VR or AR experience, but instead the blended version of the technologies into their experience. This will mostly focus on training use cases, and we’re shifting towards advanced headsets like the Pico 4 Enterprise, HTC VIVE XR Elite to create them”
He continued:
“Of course, every single XR company will try to port their products onto the upcoming Apple Vision Pro and so will we, but, without further details, we are going to take full advantage of the Vision Pro’s new functionalities that they’re bringing to the market.”
In a year which saw such transformation across the XR sector as a whole, ARuVR stands poised to maintain its industry-leading position in 2024, as it continues to redefine the boundaries of immersive education.
Their commitment to transforming learning and development through XR technology not only aligns with the evolving needs of the global workforce but also sets a new standard for the industry. As we look towards 2024, ARuVR is not just looking ahead but paving the way forward, promising a future where XR learning is not just a possibility, but a fundamental component of educational and professional development.
For more information, check out: https://aruvr.com/.
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