What Will AR Look Like In 2021?

by Sarah Shamouelian

It’s no secret that 2020 caused us all to re-evaluate our priorities and expect the unexpected. The analyst industry, focused on predictions and concrete strategies, was not immune to the forces that changed our world over the past year. But how do we know what to expect from AR as a whole going forward?

Sven Litke, co-founder of Kea Company, shares his insights gained from working in the industry. With a career foundation in IT, Sven started out selling hardware during the tech boom of the late 90s. He formed relations with analysts early on, and when the climate started shifting towards other faces of technology, he decided to join up with Gartner to get a piece of the action. No stranger to change, he then went on to create his own company to provide businesses (including startups) with a comprehensive understanding of AR. 

Sven knows that the market had a tremendous uptake in AR interest in 2020, but markets still retain a lot of uncertainty. The key to predicting the market shift- if that’s even possible- will be in applying the market trends we’ve already seen, and understand, to the world of AR. 

For example, nearly every industry has faced the challenge of remote working in one way or another. AR, however, is uniquely suited to this. As a result of analysts traveling less and increased delegation at enterprise levels, so much time is freed up on both sides of the equation. This makes analysts and AR team members much more accessible and fosters an increasingly productive environment.

Additionally, the tone of the conversation between analysts and stakeholders is changing rapidly. As budgets for AR tend to be decreasing on the whole, more effort is put into making each conversation more conducive to execution. This translates to a much bigger focus on quality over quantity, something we all hope to see continue. 

Finally, in spite of the fact that it has been a difficult time financially for many clients, we are seeing an uptick in the intimacy of conversations between corporations and analysts. Face-to-face video calls are the norm, scaled-down teams are forging closer relationships than ever before, and the appreciation of these relationships inherently bolsters the credibility of AR.