Defining Augmented Reality (AR) - Business And IT Glossary

Augmented reality (AR) leverages graphic images to overlay on top of a physical environment. These images, such as repair instructions, can be viewed in relation to a picture or a live video view of an environment, such as an engine bay in a car. Some applications of AR require specific hardware, such as Microsoft HoloLens.

Many people have viewed augmented reality images in sports for years, perhaps without realizing it: from AR lines drawn on a football field to indicate the next down line, to moving lines drawn across swimming pools to superimpose the pace of a record-pace, to tracing the paths of basketballs, baseballs, and tennis balls during play.

AR has many use cases in the enterprise, such as being used in repair or assembly instructions, or immersive training scenarios. Because AR can be leveraged by many users at the same time, new use cases will continue to emerge.