Remote collaboration tools like Zoom are gathering massive amounts of attention as people begin working from home en masse. But, as with most trends, virtual reality seems to be sitting out this boom.
This should be surprising to absolutely no one, but the lack of widespread adoption is not for lack of trying.
Virtual reality has already had a rough couple of years. Though a handful of startups in the space have continued to raise and find customers, most have done so by either committing to tight niches or opening up their services and minimizing their reliance on VR-only audiences. All the while, investors and founders have been left to wonder whether the “presence” offered by immersing yourself wholly in a digital environment is undone by crude avatars, clunky hardware and lackluster integrations with popular work software tools.
Enterprise VR hasn’t been completely quiet. A number of startups have raised funding in recent months on the premise that the future of work has a space carved out for virtual reality applications. In the collaboration space, VR startups argue that existing platforms are static, dated and leave employees feeling disconnected. VR’s oft-espoused mantra is that inhabiting a virtual space allows people to communicate more naturally.
I recently met with Anand Agarawala, CEO of Spatial, an AR/VR collaboration tool that locked down a $14 million round of funding earlier this year. VR startups haven’t been raising rounds this large lately, but Agarawala has ambitious plans for how his collaboration platform can outdo Zoom.
“Zoom kind of breaks down the more distributed you are, and we bring it all together,” says Agarawala. “One of the things you notice in Spatial is the presence is so real, when you’re meeting with someone it looks like them and it sounds like them, your brain perceives and hears them in 3D.”
Spatial is offering a more general pitch than other tools that have been designed around specific industry verticals like architecture or automotive design.
Agarawala says about half of his startup’s existing customers are focused on using the platform to review 3D data and the remainder use it as a more general collaboration tool. “They’re saying, ‘hey, we are super distributed and we want to get everyone on the same page.’ ”
The few areas of VR software that have shown signs of promise have largely been able to succeed as a result of platform investments from tech giants. Workplace collaboration, however, has been almost wholly ignored by large VR industry players. Google and Microsoft have largely abandoned their VR efforts, while Facebook’s VR focus has centered almost entirely on consumer use cases with a particular focus on gaming. Facebook has offered few updates on its Oculus for Business program, which it revealed at a planned revamp for its VR developer conference last year.
While many in the industry see the success of enterprise VR as a necessary step toward the future health of the industry, many of the major players have already pivoted toward investing in AR platforms like Microsoft with the HoloLens, or Magic Leap and its own platform.
In a world where few consumers own VR headsets and few have even tried one, there is a very small market for an AR/VR-only platform. The hope for platforms like Spatial is that existing platforms gain a bigger footprint; Apple enters the field with a more approachable product, and they can gain as wide a reach as possible in the meantime. Spatial supports AR platforms like HoloLens and Magic Leap, but also has mobile and desktop integrations for users who lack the latest fancy gadgets.
“I think it’s a major competitive advantage for us to support every major hardware platform,” Agarawala says. “That’s something a big company won’t do. Apple isn’t going to build outside their ecosystem.”
There is the question whether these points of differentiation ignore some fundamental issues with VR collaboration in general. Users are flocking to Zoom right now because distributed teams are keen to meet face-to-face and don’t always see Slack channels meeting these same needs. VR’s reliance on simplistic avatars may bring a more natural 3D interface into the mix, but losing facial expressions and visual cues is a major sacrifice. Facebook has invested heavily in avatar technology, and while some of their research shows a promising future, the current generation of avatars on both the consumer and enterprise side aren’t there yet.
All the while, VR’s brand of collaboration is very isolating from existing workflows. Users may be able to view desktops in VR, but native integrations are non-existent for popular work software and it’s hard to imagine that those conversations are even close to getting started.
AR/VR collaboration tools are obviously unlikely to see exponential growth unless the hardware platforms on which they are best showcased see that same level of adoption. That isn’t the case for now, but AR/VR founders have gotten pretty used to waiting and hoping for the best, something we all seem to be doing these days.