With Apple evolving and taking a stand with each wave, the ARkit will potentially be installed in over 400,000,000 phones by the end of 2018. (Digi-Capital) Facebook is marketing “it’s all about the camera” with their effects platform being rolled out to Facebook Messengers 1.2 billion, WhatsApp’s 1.2 billion, and Instagram 700 million users. Launched in April 2017, it will make it easier for developers to build features like stickers and 3D masks that can be overlaid onto photos and videos on Facebook’s portfolio of apps. The company is leveraging its extensive developer community to become the next major app ecosystem according to The New York Times.

If you need one reason to create a strategy this is it, “Facebook and Apples market dominance has the potential combined user integration approaching one billion consumers in the next 16 months!”

Let’s look at retail now and in the future, how do you compete with online giants like Alibaba recording a USD $22.9 billion in revenues and Amazon achieving USD $136 billion in 2016 and recently opening up their own Amazon Go retail stores with no cashiers focusing on the supermarket sector. Not surprisingly, Amazon’s win is also American retail’s loss. 46 percent of department store jobs have vanished since 2000, coinciding with Amazon’s ascendance. According to Fung Global Retail & Technology, 5,300 stores have announced closures this year (three times as many as 2016). Brick and mortar stores have suffered and will continue to suffer as the Amazon’s of the world take market share and disrupt entire shopping models. But the real casualty here will be consumer brands that overly depend on ‘choice’ and placement at the shelf.

Augmented Reality Drives the Internet of Things

One major opportunity is to combine augmented reality and power the experience with IoT. By using AR and wayfinding technology you can drive consumers to your location maximizing your investment in shopping mall and street locations. Real time offers can become instant reality for shoppers by offering impulse incentives, here and now is a powerful sales tool. Once again, the future is not that far away. Once smartglasses hit the market in the coming years the options for any digital experience for all industry sectors will take AR mainstream.

The idea that the technology will be available on multiple devices just shows how deeply committed Apple is to AR. With the development community now having access to a number of creation tools, platforms, and services to engage these digital titans, there will be few industry sectors that are not affected. Some of these include education, real estate, shopping, gaming, tourism, health, and film and television.

2018 potentially realizes this massive wave of new future realities, let’s get moving.