As trends like remote and hybrid work continue to redefine the “workplace of the future”, companies are increasingly searching for new ways to reconnect and realign their distributed teams. With fewer opportunities available for staff members to connect and interact in person, organisations need to find new ways of synchronising their staff, transcending physical boundaries.
For many, this journey began with the implementation of new digital collaboration tools, which allow employees to share information in real-time, through messaging, voice, and video. However, even powerful platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom can’t always deliver the engagement, creativity, and presence attributed to real-world interactions.
Immersive collaboration tech could be the solution. Leveraging concepts like 360-degree video, extended reality, and the metaverse, immersive collaboration tools allow organizations to recreate the workplace in a digital setting. They help brands to create powerful environments where teams can interact effectively, without having to travel long distances for the face-to-face connection.
The question is, how do companies choose the right immersive collaboration tech for their needs?
Step 1: Define Use Cases
The first step in successfully choosing any new technology, is defining what the solution should be able to accomplish. Immersive tools can assist organisations in achieving a number of collaborative goals, from boosting the quality of meetings, to assisting teams in the development of new products.
By determining how and why employees will be collaborating in immersive experiences, business leaders can establish what types of technology they’ll need. For instance, if companies want to improve bonds between employees by allowing them to enjoy more human interactions, they might consider using extended reality tools to recreate a sense of presence in a collaborative session.
Microsoft Teams offers users the opportunity to bring virtual avatars to their meeting environments, for more powerful, interactive experiences in virtual reality. Solutions like Meta’s “Horizon Worlds” allow team members to work together through gamified experiences to improve bonds.
Alternatively, if teams are going to be working together on more complex tasks, like building new products and prototypes, they may need to leverage digital twin technology, and metaverse environments, to ensure they can interact with relevant virtual content, while working alongside distributed team members. In the field services and engineering landscape, the goal of immersive collaboration may be to provide mobile team members with real-time guidance, through AR smart glasses and remote assistance apps.
Step 2: Explore Extended Reality
Immersive collaboration doesn’t always have to involve extended reality. Simple forms of immersive collaboration, such as Microsoft’s “Together Mode” solution for video conferencing, and 360-degree video tools can still provide employees with a more engaging interactive experience.
However, XR is rapidly becoming one of the most common components of true immersive collaboration. The question for companies investing in this landscape, is which form of extended reality will deliver the right results. Virtual reality, for instance, may be an ideal platform for companies looking to provide employees with a digitised version of the workplace, or access to virtual tools for building prototypes and new products.
Augmented and Mixed Reality could be the ideal choices for companies investing in the new age of hybrid work. With augmented reality smart glasses and apps, team members can access real-time insights from subject matter experts and supervisors when they’re working in the field. They can send video streams back to connected staff members, and see annotations and notes overlaid onto their physical surroundings, using AR tools.
Mixed Reality solutions can even help to enhance the connections between members of the hybrid workforce on a deeper level, using holographic images to transport virtual representations of people, devices, and products into any landscape.
Step 3: Consider Existing Collaboration Tools
Successfully embedding the disruptive technology offered by immersive collaboration tools into a team environment also requires organisations to think about the tools teams already use. Choosing a solution for immersive collaboration that integrates naturally with the communication and collaboration ecosystem used by a business can enhance adoption and user experience.
For instance, if an organization already uses Microsoft Teams to keep employees in a hybrid landscape connected, it makes sense to leverage accompanying tools in the Microsoft ecosystem, such as Microsoft Mesh, and the HoloLens MR headsets to boost immersion. If a company is using a platform like Workplace from Meta, they may choose to use Oculus headsets and Meta VR tools.
The right immersive solutions should align with the communication strategies in the organisation too, taking advantage of existing telephony connections, video communication methods, and messaging apps, so everyone has a variety of ways to interact with their colleagues.
Some solutions in the immersive collaboration landscape can support files, documents, and content from a range of different landscapes too. For instance, there are specialist tools for the manufacturing, architectural, and engineering space which can help businesses create digital twins and other virtual content using CAD files from Autodesk and similar vendors.
Step 4: Define Key Features for Immersive Tools
Once companies have defined how they’re going to leverage immersion in the collaborative world, and how future teams will work together in digital environments, it’s time to think about the features and capabilities of hardware and software solutions that will help to boost immersion.
Many immersive collaboration tools don’t just allow team members to share files, videos, images, and documents in a digital space. They also boost each user’s sense of presence, with features like spatial sound. Spatial sound helps to position individuals in a virtual space, using audio delivered at different levels, based on where a person in the interaction is located.
Immersive tools can also help employees in a collaborative environment to interact more effectively with digital resources. For instance, haptic technology in the form of gloves, body suits, and other devices, can make employees feel like they’re actually touching a specific item. These solutions can be particularly valuable for collaborative training sessions, as they can assist team members in developing muscle memories based on kinaesthetic feedback.
Immersive tools may also need to take advantage of various other advanced solutions, such as sensors for tracking eye and hand movement, and cloud computing tools which make it easier to stream large amounts of content to distributed employees at the same time.
Step 5: Compare Hardware and Software Providers
Finally, the last step in effectively comparing immersive collaboration tech is examining the solutions available from both hardware and software providers. In most cases, building a truly immersive collaborative landscape will require companies to invest in a range of technologies. For instance, a manufacturing company building a digital twin-enhanced metaverse environment where professionals can work together on developing new products, will need the software to build this immersive space.
However, the same organization will also need to invest in the tools and hardware that allow employees to enter the metaverse in an engaging way. This means investing in virtual or mixed reality headsets, sensors for tracking eye and body movement, and computing tools for connectivity.
The more advanced the collaborative landscape, the more complex the technology stack is likely to become. While some organizations may be able to take advantage of existing VR collaboration apps and AR assistance tools, others will need to work with developers to build entire worlds from scratch. It may even be necessary to leverage specialist hardware, designed for use in specific collaborative environments. For instance, some headsets and wearables are better-suited to the construction space than others.
