How Can Businesses Use Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality (AR) enhances the physical world by superimposing computer-generated information—audio, video, graphics or data—on the user’s view of the real world. While virtual reality immerses the user, AR can give an outside scope visualization while being deployed on devices like smartphones, tablets, glasses, or even a mirror.

Grand View Research shows us that the global AR market is expected to reach $599 billion by 2030, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 37.9 percent. And the AR revolution is taking place across all sectors—from retail giants achieving 94 percent higher conversion rates to manufacturing companies experiencing 50 percent reductions in training time. If you aren’t already exploring AR for your business, you’re missing a competitive advantage that’s fundamentally reshaping how companies engage customers and optimize operations.

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality is all about creating meaningful interactions with the real world. It’s used to view virtual objects in the real world (customers trying out furniture in their own living rooms) or to superimpose computer-generated information on the physical world (repair technicians seeing detailed instructions overlaid on the machines they’re working on).

These systems work by merging computer vision, then mapping and depth-tracking technologies to capture, analyze and wirelessly transmit the data that creates the user’s augmented experience. A key advantage to AR for businesses is that most mobile phones and tablets can act as AR platforms when combined with the right software.

Exploding Topics shows us over 2 billion mobile AR user devices worldwide in 2025, up from 1.1 billion in 2022. This shows that users are rapidly adopting AR, opening doors for businesses to use it without having to acclimate customers to the experience itself.  The technical barriers that once made AR prohibitive for most businesses have largely disappeared, with Modern AR development platforms allowing companies to create compelling experiences without extensive technical expertise.

Why AR Delivers Real Results

Studies from Harvard Business Review reveal that customers using 3D and AR were 19.8 percent more likely to make a purchase, concluding that immersive technology usage “dramatically affects customer engagement, customer behavior, and sales.”

Conversion

The most direct measure of AR’s business impact lies in its ability to turn browsers into buyers through enhanced product visualization.

• Higher conversion rates: Statistics from Single Grain show 3D AR ads generate 94 percent higher conversion rates than static display ads.
• Increased purchase confidence: Customers can visualize products in their intended environment before buying.
• Higher average order values: An inside look by BrandRX shows that AR mirrors increase user purchase value by nearly 2.7x.
• Reduced cart abandonment: Visual product interaction increases purchase commitment.

Brand and Marketing Benefits

Augmented reality shifts marketing from a passive consumption activity into an active engagement one, deepening the relationships between brands and their customers.

• Enhanced brand recall: BrandRX also shows that AR leads to 70 percent higher memory recall compared to traditional advertising.
• Increased engagement: AR campaigns generate 3x higher brand lift at 59 percent reduced cost.
• Extended interaction time: Engagement times are 4x longer than mobile video content.
• Social sharing amplification: AR experiences naturally encourage user-generated content and social sharing.

Operational Advantages

In addition to providing marketers with new metrics to measure, AR also has a number of tangible benefits that help drive down back-end business costs and improve operational efficiency.

• Reduced returns: Customers make more informed decisions when they can visualize products.
• Lower customer service costs: AR reduces pre-purchase questions and post-purchase issues.
• Improved customer satisfaction: 73 percent of mobile AR users report feeling high rates of satisfaction.
• Competitive differentiation: Early adopters establish market leadership positions.

For businesses looking to cut through marketing noise and create memorable customer experiences, the technology solves the fundamental challenge of online commerce by helping customers understand products they can’t physically touch.

AR Across Sectors

Businesses across sectors are discovering that AR solves problems traditional technology simply can’t touch. The applications are as varied as the industries, but the result patterns reappears. Here’s how companies across major industries are using AR to win.

Retail and Ecommerce

Research from Threekit shows that retail accounted for 55 percent of AR use in 2024, largely driven by its ability to bridge gaps between online and physical shopping experiences. The impact is immediate and measurable across multiple business metrics:

Virtual Try-On Experiences

Allowing customers to try before they buy gives retailers the opportunity to increase shopper purchase confidence.

• Beauty and cosmetics: Sephora’s Virtual Artist lets customers demo products, reducing returns and increasing purchase confidence.
• Fashion and accessories: Customers can see how clothing fits and looks before ordering.
• Eyewear: Online opticians like Vision Express offer virtual try-on features using webcam technology.
• Jewelry: Customers can see how pieces look on them without visiting stores.

Home and Furniture Visualization

AR visualization solutions enable customers to try out products at home by placing the digital twin of a product in its exact intended place.

• IKEA Place app: Uses LiDAR to measure rooms and suggest furniture, showing products in real-time within customer spaces.
• Paint visualization: Customers can see how wall colors look within the context of their home.
• Decor placement: Interior design apps help customers visualize how certain items may mesh with their existing interior design.

Cases

Here are a few instances across retail where AR dramatically increased conversion metrics.

• Rebecca Minkoff: 65 percent higher purchase likelihood after AR interaction, with customers examining products from every angle.
• Gunner Kennels: 40 percent conversion increase and 5 percent reduction in returns using AR sizing tools that help customers select appropriate kennel sizes.
• Gucci: 300 percent increase in online sales after introducing AR sneaker try-on features.
• DFS: 112 percent increase in conversions and 22x ROI from their web-based AR implementation.

Companies implementing AR in retail see significant improvements in key performance indicators. The tech directly addresses the primary pain point retailers see with online shopping, including but not limited to uncertainty about product fit, appearance, and quality.

The social aspect of AR retail experiences also drives viral marketing. When customers share AR try-on experiences on social platforms, they create authentic user-generated content that builds brand credibility and reaches new audiences organically.

Industrial Training and Maintenance

According to the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA), AR-based instruction delivers transformative improvements in industrial settings. Research from their comprehensive studies shows AR training and maintenance applications provide measurable operational benefits:

Training Effectiveness Improvements

AR training solutions provide quantifiable boosts in performance metrics.

• 70 percent reduction in failure rates compared to traditional instruction methods.
• 80 percent decrease in rework time, significantly reducing operational costs.
• 40 percent improvement in procedure speeds, increasing overall productivity.
• 50 percent reduction in overall training time while maintaining or improving competency levels.

Real-World Industrial Applications

These applications prove that AR isn’t just experimental technology—it’s a practical tool that solves complex industrial challenges.

• TeamViewer at Volvo: Distribution center staff wearing smart glasses experienced 25 percent improvement in picking quality and faster fulfillment times.
• Boeing Aerospace: Technicians receive step-by-step digital instructions overlaid directly on aircraft components, with a 90 percent increase in first-time quality.
• Peterbilt commercial vehicles: Tablet-based allows mechanics to easily navigate through complex assemblies when skilled engineers are scarce or unavailable.

Remote Assistance and Support

Augmented reality (AR) makes it possible for field staff to receive remote support from experts in real time, allowing companies to support their employees anywhere without the time and cost of travel.

• Expert guidance: Remote specialists can see through on-site technicians’ eyes, providing real-time annotations and problem-solving support.
• Reduced travel costs: Companies eliminate expensive expert travel for routine maintenance and troubleshooting.
• Faster problem resolution: Issues are diagnosed and resolved more quickly with visual AR assistance.
• Knowledge transfer: Experienced workers can guide less experienced technicians through complex procedures.

Research from PTC identifies five critical use cases for AR in field service: identifying replacement parts, viewing technical information, enabling remote customer service, facilitating employee training, and ensuring regulatory compliance. Companies implementing these solutions report significant improvements in operational efficiency and worker safety.

A case study on a leading pharmaceutical company using PTC’s Vuforia platform found they could “cut 50% or more of their training time” by digitizing expert knowledge capture.

Employee Training and Education

Research demonstrates that after implementing AR training programs, companies across industries experience dramatic improvements in learning outcomes and operational performance. AR-based learning delivers measurable advantages over traditional training methods:

Performance Improvements

These gains aren’t just incremental improvements—they’re transformative enhancements to an organization’s ability to develop and retain a proficient workforce.

• 50 percent reduction in training time while maintaining or improving competency levels.
• Zero human error rates in procedures learned through AR compared to traditional methods.
• 30 percent increase in productivity following AR training implementation.
• Enhanced retention with visual and interactive learning improves long-term knowledge retention.

Educational Institution Applications

Augmented reality learning platforms are starting to be adopted by K-12 and higher education schools.

• West Suffolk College XR Lab: Students explore human physiology and anatomy through immersive AR experiences, improving understanding of complex biological systems.
• Medical training: Students can interact with 3D models of organs and systems, practicing procedures without risk.
• Engineering education: Complex machinery and systems can be explored in detail through AR visualization

Other Training Applications

These implementations prove that AR isn’t just useful for corporate training—it’s revolutionizing education at the foundational level.

• Aviation training: The Royal Air Force uses AR-based fighter pilot training to increase flight hours while dramatically cutting fuel costs and safety risks.
• Corporate training: Companies like Walmart experienced “50 percent reduction in the direct time required to complete staff safety training”.
• Safety training: Workers can practice emergency procedures and safety protocols in realistic but controlled AR environments.
• Manufacturing: One manufacturer using PTC AR solutions achieved a “40 percent reduction in training time” with a “25 percent reduction in scrap and rework”.

Healthcare Applications

According to Philips medical research, AR glasses can guide users step-by-step through operating medical equipment like defibrillators. Companies like AccuVein use AR with infrared light to help medical professionals locate veins beneath patients’ skin, reducing discomfort and increasing first-attempt success rates.

Research from AREA studies shows that immersive AR training is particularly effective for complex tasks requiring spatial understanding, manual dexterity, and sequential procedure mastery. The technology provides safe environments for learning dangerous or expensive procedures.

Product Design and Prototyping

AR changes the design process by allowing users to instantly prototype virtually, review designs with colleagues and customers, and co-create in real time. McKinsey research has shown that the integration of AR into design and development cycles has resulted in dramatic improvements in time-to-market and cost savings. Companies utilizing AR in design and development processes note substantial improvements in GTM and cost efficiency:

Design Process Innovation

Product design takes months. Because companies have to build physical prototypes to test, iterate and validate new product designs, one iteration could easily take a couple of weeks. AR allows digital twins of new products to be rendered in 3D in real time and use physics simulations to be used to test performance like in the real world. This frees teams from the building process and allows for instant iterations

• Virtual prototyping: AR allows for the immediate creation and testing of prototypes in virtual environments that mimic real-world physics.
• Cost elimination: Saves on the costs and time associated with building physical prototypes, particularly for larger or more complex designs.
• Iterative Design:  Design modifications can be made and tested on the fly without the need for physical manufacturing.
• Collaborative review: Teams can examine designs together in AR environments regardless of geographic location.

Industry-Specific Applications

These applications demonstrate how AR adapts to solve industry-specific problems while delivering measurable improvements in efficiency and customer satisfaction.

• Automotive customization: Manufacturers like Mercedes and BMW are using AR to enable customers to visualize paint colors, wheel styles, and interior trims in real-time.
• Architecture and construction: Gamma AR is helping construction teams to visualize digital models of buildings over real-world environments to spot and correct errors before they become costly.
• Product packaging: Companies create AR-enhanced packaging with videos, 3D models, and interactive content that enhances customer experiences.

Customer Co-Creation

AR empowers customers to actively participate in product configuration and space planning, leading to higher satisfaction and fewer post-purchase regrets.

• Interior design consultation: Apps like AUGmentecture help designers and clients visualize furniture and decor in intended spaces before purchase decisions.
• Custom product configuration: Customers can modify product features and see changes instantly, leading to higher satisfaction with final purchases.
• Space planning: Commercial clients can visualize equipment installations and layouts before committing to expensive purchases.

Marketing and Brand Experiences

According to consumer research from Shopify, 93 percent of consumers want to use AR to find and purchase products, with 40 percent willing to pay more for products marketed through AR experiences. The technology creates memorable brand interactions that drive both immediate engagement and long-term loyalty:

Experiential Marketing Campaigns

These marketing campaigns show that AR can elevate everyday customer interactions into shareable moments that show higher engagement times than a traditional advertising budget.

• Pepsi’s AR bus shelter: The 2014 London campaign generated 385 million earned media impressions and corresponded with 35 percent sales increase, transforming a simple bus stop into an immersive brand experience.
• Gorillaz Times Square takeover: End-of-2022 AR performances in New York and London promoted their new single while creating shareable social content.
• Mercedes AI assistant: The Ask Mercedes app combines AI chatbots with AR functionality, serving as an augmented car manual that increases post-purchase satisfaction.

Luxury Brand Innovation

Luxury brands face a dilemma with digital marketing: how to stay exclusive and preserve their aspirational status while also leveraging technologies that can help their customers. AR is the solution, providing bespoke, premium experiences that align with luxury brands’ values while also yielding measurable ROI.

• Ipsos survey findings: 68 percent of luxury shoppers want AR experiences online, with 69 percent saying they want their favorite brands to do more with AR.
• Gucci virtual 25 sneakers: AR try-on features made Gucci one of the first luxury brands to embrace virtual fitting, generating significant social media buzz.
• Machine A virtual store: During COVID-19, this London fashion brand created virtual stores for Fashion Week, enabling global access to emerging designer collections.

Interactive Advertising

This advertising strategy turns ads from an interruption into an interactive experience customers want to access and share.

• Location-based experiences: BON V!V placed QR codes on Los Angeles and San Diego murals, creating virtual vending machines that generated 58 percent click-through rates.
• Social media integration: AR filters and lenses create user-generated content that amplifies brand reach organically.
• Product demonstrations: Interactive AR ads let customers explore product features and functionality in engaging ways.

Studies from Nielsen show that AR advertising generates significantly higher engagement rates than traditional digital advertising formats. The technology’s inherent shareability makes it particularly effective for viral marketing campaigns that extend reach beyond initial audience targeting.

Getting Started with AR

Contrary to what one might think, the most common mistake businesses make with AR is not on the implementation, but on the go-to-market strategy. Brands that fail with AR tend to fall into one of two traps: the impatient jump right in with no plan and scale prematurely, or the overly conservative hold out for “the perfect opportunity” to implement, which never arrives.

Implementation is most successful when you start small, measure everything, and carefully scale what works. You can get started without a huge budget or internal team. In fact, the best AR implementations tend to begin with solving one specific customer pain point really well, building momentum, proving ROI and using that information to grow AR maturity systematically.

Phase 1: Assessment and Planning

Many AR projects may be due to skipped planning processes. Hopping right into implementation without taking the time to assess and plan properly often means your solution lacks nuance and understanding of the underlying marketing issue to be solved. The planning phase will determine if your AR investment is a solid one that can deliver measurable results.

• Pain point identification: Analyze your biggest customer friction points where AR could provide solutions.
• Competitor analysis: Research how companies in adjacent industries are using AR successfully.
• Budget allocation: Determine appropriate investment levels based on expected ROI and business objectives.
• Technology audit: Assess current technical capabilities and integration requirements.

It’s no coincidence that the brands with the highest AR ROI’s also have the highest overall planning and strategy rigor, including during the assessment and planning phase. Proper planning can save months of development time and wasted resources. Most importantly, it’s a safeguard against spending time and money on AR demos that may be cool but do not solve real business problems.

Phase 2: Pilot Program Development

Instead of attempting to build the perfect AR solution first, seek instead to prove its value as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. This phase is all about validation: prove your technology choices are the right ones, then establish those baseline metrics in advance of scaling. Think of this phase as a pilot program or proof of concept that either justifies further investment or allows the recognition of a costly mistake early enough that it can be aborted.

• Start simple: Start with smartphone-based AR experiences you don’t have to push customers to use.
• Focus on value: Prioritize solving specific customer problems rather than creating novelty experiences.
• Partnership evaluation: Consider working with established AR development platforms to reduce implementation complexity.
• Success metrics definition: Establish clear KPIs and measurement frameworks before launch.

A winning pilot program will deliver three things: validated demand, proof of concept customer problems you can and have solved, and measurable business impact that can be expected from scaling the solution.

Phase 3: Scale and Optimization

With validated demand and a roadmap created by your pilot program, this is the phase in which AR turns from a nice-to-have to a competitive differentiator. This phase is all about scaling and optimizing based on live user data.

• Performance analysis: Use pilot data to optimize the performance of what is working and grow successful AR applications.
• Customer feedback integration: Continuously improve AR features based on user experience and satisfaction data.
• Cross-platform expansion: Extend successful AR applications to additional customer touch-points and marketing channels.
• Advanced feature development: Incorporate emerging AR capabilities like AI-powered personalization and social sharing.

This stage requires a lot of discipline to succeed as well, lest the temptation to add new features as they can overwhelm. All new capabilities added in this stage should either address new customer pain points or improve the customer experience around already validated pain points.

Measuring AR Success

The key distinction between AR implementations with stellar ROI and those that become costly experiments is the measurement strategy. Measuring AR success requires focusing on metrics that accurately correlate with business objectives while adjusting to results accordingly:

Key Performance Indicators

These fundamental metrics directly correlate with revenue and should be your primary focus when evaluating AR success.

• Conversion rate improvements: Track purchase rates for users who interact with AR versus those who don’t.
• Engagement time increases: Monitor how long customers spend interacting with AR-enabled content.
• Return rate reductions: Measure whether AR experiences lead to fewer product returns.
• Customer satisfaction scores: Survey customers about their AR experience quality and impact on purchase confidence.

Advanced Analytics

Explore customer behavior trends to see how AR influences the broader customer journey and business ecosystem.

• Customer journey mapping: Track how AR interactions influence the entire purchase path.
• Revenue attribution: Calculate direct revenue impact from AR-enabled customer touchpoints.
• Cost per acquisition: Compare customer acquisition costs for AR-enabled versus traditional marketing campaigns.
• Lifetime value impact: Assess whether AR experiences lead to higher customer lifetime values.

ThreeKit data reveals 77 percent of consumers expect to use AR to see product variants like color, material, or finish. This expectation is driving 4.5x longer dwell times on AR-enabled product pages, which we know is directly related to higher conversion and higher average order value. Focus on the metrics that directly impact your bottom line—conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and lifetime value.

Implementation Metrics

Track the technical details, metrics and functionality of your AR experiences in order to gauge its effectiveness.

• Adoption rates: Measure what percentage of customers use AR when given the option
• Technical performance: Track loading times, crash rates, and quality of user experience.
• Platform effectiveness: Measure AR performance by device or OS.
• Content optimization: A/B test various AR experiences to find the most effective variations.

As some companies are still asking whether AR is ready for the “real world” or not, others are already working on building the products and services that customers will come to expect in the not-so-distant future. The excuses have been taken away – the tech is here, the tools are available, and the early players are carving out market share that will be hard to compete with. AR is about closing the gap between customer needs and what is currently possible with traditional digital experiences.