消费者XR面临现实考验

XR technology is forecast to rocket from a market value of $55 billion in 2023 to $490 billion by 2030 which holds both a promise and a puzzle. While business to business use of XR has taken hold, consumer applications have failed to move beyond the hype.

“企业有一些真正的价值, 但对于消费者来说，我们正处于一个新奇的阶段,鲍勃·提图斯说, 首席技术官, Netcracker技术. “That doesn’t mean we won’t, but after the hype of two years ago we are not there yet in B2C.”

In 2022, you couldn’t move at Mobile World Congress for someone 谈论元宇宙. 到了2024年，它几乎没有被提及. 人工智能可能已经消除了所有的讨论. 但这是否意味着XR泡沫已经破裂?

Metaverse消失

“你走不了十步。几年前看到了元宇宙, and the promise of everything it was going to deliver for consumers such as individual experiences and making transactions with blockchain,优素福·塔伊布说, 埃森哲集团运营首席执行官. “Is it time to assess the actual impact versus the theoretical potential of XR?”

There actually isn’t much value for the mobile industry in current iterations of consumer VR because it is all conducted over Wi-Fi in the home.

“目前还没有支持5g的耳机. Nor is there likely to be since VR happens in doors. Out of home is where it gets interesting for mobile and where we need to provide connectivity,莱斯利·香农说, 趋势负责人 & 创新侦察，诺基亚.

B2B XR中的ROI

B2B的情况明显不同. 诺基亚最近委托安永调查XR在工业中的应用 and found about 10% of companies in US and Europe using some kind of XR already.

“What is remarkable is the gap between those thinking about using XR and those already using it,香农说. “The actual return on investment was higher than the expectations of companies which have yet to try XR. This is first time in my knowledge that a technology is exceeding expectations of business return.”

另一项研究，这次是 Delottie, found the average number of use cases in business by companies was six. “You start with one or two and then other departments see the benefits and want to use it for reduction in travel, 例如,”她说。.

尽管如此，苹果公司还是发布了Vision Pro, 笨重的, power draining and heat generating form factor of current VR/XR headgear is limiting mobility.

“Widescale adoption won’t happen until the form factor is correct,” Titus warned.

MWC 2024 XR面板

AI-XR收敛

然而, GenAI could accelerate XR development in B2B and B2C. “GenAI has a tremendous capacity to create content and transform the XR business by providing more realistic 3D animation and personalized experiences,Sabri Albreiki说, 首席技术官e& 国际.

“Marrying XR with GenAI will be one of the most powerful and transformative technologies in the next decade,香农表示同意.

然而, the processing power required of GenAI cannot be incorporated into a device and worn by a person. The smartphone is already running into compute limits.

“人工智能将变得分布式，”提图斯说. “The connectivity needs to link the consumer with the AI that resides in the cloud. For that you need the low latency and high speed of 5G.”

XR的外形必须具有很强的移动性. It will be glasses and a connection to your sim card and distributed data processing.”

问题归结为谁将拥有它. “Will our industry take it quickly enough, or will it all be AWS and Azure?诺基亚的香农问道.

“We are very risk averse as an industry [about] the whole idea of managing computing located in the network. 但如果我们不接受，别人会接受.”

Netcracker’s Titus agreed saying “We need to think beyond basic monetization.”

He said, “Yes, we need to build subscription into use cases and charge for consumption. But also offer data management and security and localised LLM as a service. Service providers can become aggregators of the ecosystem of how these services all come together and ensure they extract value out of that XR marketplace. 这就是机会.”

The mobile industry is eyeing the convergence of 5G with AI to unlock potential for XR applications out of the home. The underlying technology of Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) is quite mature. MEC is the near real-time processing of large amounts of data produced by edge devices and applications closest to where it’s captured. Scenes can be rendered in the network and XR content can be delivered directly to headsets with minimal local graphics processing.

一个例子是亚马逊波长, a service that embeds AWS compute and storage services within a carrier’s 5G network paving the way for ultra-low latency applications.

“From ultra-low latency services enhancing AR and VR to enabling 智能城市, 5G +人工智能将开启前所未有的可能性,Anthony Goonetilleke说道, Group President for Technology and Head of Strategy at Amdocs.

He pointed to the potential of “significant transformation” in telecoms, 制造业, 运输, 智能城市, 在零售业. 后者, which involves AI-assisted recommendations made to a customer in realtime while browsing a store, is perhaps the nearest the next phase of 5G will come to a mainstream consumer out of home XR experience.

Monetising media and entertainment while on the go still needs its killer app.