The idea of different realities merging in the collaboration environment isn’t a new one.
Ever since things like the Oculus Rift appeared, showing us what might be possible with augmented and virtual reality, communication leaders have been eager to get involved.
For a while, it seemed like everyone was dipping their toes into the mixed reality landscape.
We’ve seen everyone from Google to Microsoft exploring how they can adjust reality to allow for more immersive meeting experiences – particularly in the age of the remote and distributed worker.
After all, with the right headset and software, VR and AR technology could make it possible for anyone to simply “step into” a meeting room environment wherever they are. You could see virtualised representations of your coworkers all around you or holographic images of your boss. That kind of technology goes far beyond anything we can get from HD video conferencing.
However, after an initial influx of excitement in 2017 and 2017, VR and AR lost some of its buzz.
Now, it seems like Cisco, one of the early adopters of the mixed reality landscape, might be bringing us back to the “future of meetings.”
Discussing Meetings of the Future and Collaboration 2030
A blog post by Elizabeth Bieniek, the Director of Collaboration Innovation at Cisco, was published at the end of January this year – discussing the concept of changing collaboration technology. Elizabeth drew focus to the idea of “closing the gap between digital data and the physical world.” She explained that she and her team at Cisco were looking into a new style of work – a way of replicating the face-to-face collaboration experience in a virtual environment.
This isn’t the first time that Cisco has considered the benefits of VR and AR for the communication and collaboration landscape. In 2017, the company was already experimenting with the Oculus as part of the Cisco Spark Project. The team even released a few videos designed to give an example of what meeting in a “virtual reality” landscape might look like.
Unfortunately, the project was shut down as quickly as it started – dwindling to nothing by 2018. It seemed that the time just wasn’t right for AR and VR to come to life. The technology wasn’t there yet. There was too much latency, lag, and other connectivity problems to deal with for mixed reality to become a realistic part of the collaborative world.
Cisco’s initial forays into the mixed reality world were quickly brushed off as a novel idea – but not something the world of work could handle – yet.
Now, however, we’re entering a brand-new decade. Companies like Magic Leap are beginning to explore the business landscape for extended reality, and Cisco has stepped back into the spotlight. As Bieniek notes in her blog post, the collaboration group at Cisco has been “fairly vocal” about unlocking new augmented reality experiences with Cisco Webex Teams and teams APIs.
Building Tools in “Stealth Mode”
Here’s where things get particularly interesting.
After acknowledging the exciting opportunities that augmented and virtual reality could bring to the collaborative landscape (particularly for “remote teams”), Elizabeth let a secret slip.
She notes in her blog post that for the last couple of years, Cisco’s collaboration team has been “building something in stealth mode”. Bieniek describes the innovative new experience as truly exciting, though she doesn’t go into much more detail than that. According to Elizabeth, Cisco isn’t ready to share the prototype of its new solution just yet – and that makes sense.
There’s still a lot of work to do in the AR/VR environment. Now that we’re entering a world where mobile connectivity is getting stronger – thanks in part to the arrival of things like 5G, it seems likely that mixed reality is becoming a more realistic opportunity. However, this kind of technology requires a lot of tweaking and testing to be made perfect.
Cisco wouldn’t want to ruin its reputation as an innovator and provider of reliable tech by rolling something out before it was ready.
Though Elizabeth doesn’t share much about what could be coming from Cisco in the months or years to come, she does say that the company is challenging the idea of what a meeting “could be”. Cisco is unlocking years of knowledge in things like hardware, networking, and software solutions, to create something that could blow the entire marketplace out of the water.
As Bieniek puts it, Cisco is working “behind closed doors” with some of the most inspiring innovators in the industry to open a new world of possibilities. While there’s still a lot to figure out before we get to see this new world in action – we’re excited for the big reveal.
As Cisco says, “stay tuned; you won’t want to miss it.”
