Use case: Augmented Reality & AI to improve the Employee Experience
Contents
When we talk about Augmented Reality (AR) on mobile devices, we often associate this technology with use cases that lean more towards marketing or entertainment rather than productivity.
However, at Onirix, we ensure that each use case in which we apply AR for different industries has a purpose behind it, delivering value to the company investing in immersive technologies, even in those cases where we also include gaming dynamics.
Today, we are going to talk about the application of AR for Talent or Human Resources. A vertical where the value of this technology is associated with increasing employee knowledge about the company, enhancing engagement or connection with the company, and digitizing training processes, both in risk prevention and the use of products in certain sectors.
Next, we will look at real use cases that are perfect for understanding the value that augmented reality can bring from a business impact perspective.
AR FOR REMOTE ONBOARDING
We begin the journey through employee onboarding, a process that has recently transformed with the increasing prevalence of hybrid teams working interchangeably from home or the office. One of the company’s biggest concerns is ensuring that this onboarding process fosters, rather than diminishes, the employee’s connection and knowledge of the company.
How can Augmented Reality contribute to onboarding?
Let’s imagine we are talking about María, an employee who has started working at a company with a hybrid online-in-person contract and has received her welcome kit at home, although she will go to the office on Tuesday to meet her colleagues and see her workplace.
From home, María can use her mobile phone to interact with an augmented reality avatar that represents the essence of the company.
This avatar, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), contains all the knowledge about the company and, through questions that may or may not be guided to encourage interaction, will convey all the information María needs to reduce her uncertainty.
But in addition, the avatar will present María with a series of mini-games and 3D visual representations to make this process more enjoyable: a puzzle, a timeline with the most important events of her company, a who’s who of her colleagues, a section with questions in the style of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?“, 3D representations of the company’s products and those of its competitors…
And we come to what reassures María the most: a model of the building she will visit on Tuesday with an interactive map of her floor and her workplace.
AR FOR PHYSICAL ONBOARDING
When María arrives at the company, the possibilities of augmented reality (AR) expand significantly. Whether through image recognition (think of a poster) or 3D space recognition (think of a room), we can deploy new AR experiences to continue providing María with information about, for example, safety measures and risk prevention in her new office.
Specifically, for this last use, augmented reality enhances María’s level of participation and the assimilation or retention of concepts through active learning.
But we can even add more fun… What if we create a special room that, through augmented reality, transforms into a themed Escape Room? Every 6 months, there could be a new one, and if you complete it, you earn a series of points on your employee portal, just like when you complete one of the monthly quizzes sent by the Talent department. These points can be redeemed for a series of benefits for each employee.
AR FOR EVENTS
Speaking of fun, María’s company holds two events a year so that everyone can get to know each other, catch up on the company’s situation, and engage in team-building activities outdoors.
But this year, the company has decided to take it a step further and create “Escape the city,” an outdoor Escape Room throughout the city of Barcelona, entirely made with Augmented Reality through the mobile phone browser.
AR FOR MAINTENANCE AND TRAINING
Finally, Augmented Reality can be used for maintenance and training in sectors such as the industrial sector.
According to a Deloitte Insights report, AR can improve information retention by up to 80% compared to traditional training methods. This significant improvement is due to augmented reality providing interactive and immersive learning experiences that facilitate understanding and memorization of the content.
Thanks to Onirix’s Spatial AR technology, you can scan machinery with your mobile phone, for example; then see its 3D representation in Onirix Studio and anchor AR experiences that include step-by-step instructions, quizzes about the machines, real-time IoT information, videos, and much more.
You could even combine the spatial awareness of this room with AI to create smart rooms with an augmented reality layer. The goal of this approach could be to enhance the knowledge of the people working there dynamically with on-site training that combines reality with a digital layer, or to improve their maintenance tasks by identifying issues in real-time.
AR AND TALENT: ENHANCING THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
There are, ultimately, multiple joint applications of Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Resources. For now, at Onirix, we believe that the best way to democratize this combination is through the use of smartphones and tablets because most people already own at least one of these devices. However, some of the experiences you can create with Onirix Studio, such as World Tracking, are also compatible with the browser on Meta Quest 3.
Surely, in the near future, with the release of new augmented reality headsets and the incorporation of AR in ergonomic glasses like those from Ray-Ban and Meta, we will be able to integrate all these layers in a much more natural way into people’s daily lives, including the workplace.
But the important thing then will not be the technology itself, but what we do with it, focusing on the value it brings to the people who use it. This is our true goal.
Do you want to know more about how to apply augmented reality in the HR sector? Visit our page AR for HR and Training.
