Over 16 million industrial XR devices set to ship in 2027

Enterprises have increasingly leveraged augmented and virtual reality devices over the last five years. Key use cases have spawned out of the most valuable implementations, including training, remote assistance, and workflow instruction. More recently, training has been foremost in enterprise XR conversations as a use case that can deliver high value. According to global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, the industrial XR market will reach US$60 billion in total revenues by 2030, most stemming from XR training and similarly high-value implementations.

“Alongside other well-known valuable XR use cases like remote assistance and workflow instruction, training is becoming the latest focus for enterprises,” says Eric Abbruzzese, Research Director with ABI Research. “XR training deployments show significant improvements in key performance metrics like retention and repeat training while also improving user experience and satisfaction with the content. Outside of some upfront content creation needs, XR training can deliver value quickly and over time.”

XR training delivers a few KPIs that highlight the extensive value: less training time is required compared to traditional training operations, retention and recall is significantly better than conventional methods, training is more flexible in terms of location and timing, and XR training is often cheaper than traditional training in the long run. Training is more effective by creating training content that can be customized and tailored to specific needs, and the content is also infinitely repeatable and scalable once created. This can save not only active training time but also reduce training revisits. Any time a traditionally hands-on training experience can be done with XR, there can again be significant cost savings avoiding wasted processes and products. Training in hazardous environments can also be done in XR first, keeping workers safe and increasing confidence once on site, thanks to familiarity gained with XR.

Many XR training operators are recognizing the need for their products in Industrial and expanding into the market. StriVR, which started in sports training and moved into retail, now also has successful deployments in Industrial. Pixo, Taqtile, and ARuVR are similar, scaling into industrial after their existing training and learning strengths in other markets became understood. Industrial presents some unique challenges, especially around integration and content optimization, but operators know this and have been building integration and professional services to serve those needs.

“Industrial markets are familiar with complex operations and the pitfalls that can come with that: downtime cost, expert travel costs, scrap and error rates, and more. These pitfalls can be lessened or avoided completely by supplementing or replacing existing training methods with XR. While content creation does take time and resources, once a solution is built, the value is undeniable,” concludes Abbruzzese. ABI Research