Augmented Reality (AR) has come a long way since its mainstream debut with Pokémon Go in 2016, when players experienced a fusion of digital and physical worlds. This early glimpse into AR’s potential sparked global interest, not just among consumers but also within the business world.

Today, almost a decade later, AR is a powerful tool for enhancing customer engagement, creating immersive marketing experiences, and transforming product visualization. For instance, IKEA’s Place app allows users to visualize furniture in their homes using AR, driving both customer satisfaction and sales growth. Similarly, AR features in Gucci’s app let shoppers virtually “try on” shoes, boosting e-commerce conversion rates.

The global AR market is expected to grow from $39 billion in 2023 to over $114 billion by 2027, with industries like retail, manufacturing, and healthcare leading adoption, according to Statista. In 2025, AR will continue to redefine industries by bridging the gap between the physical and digital, offering businesses cutting-edge ways to connect, communicate, and compete.

In this blog, observe top augmented reality trends: We zoom in on how AR is shaping virtual interactions for business and non-business purposes—we look at AR’s role in the Metaverse and the concepts behind AR wearables and other hardware, the AR cloud, and WebAR.

4 Top AR trends to be ready for in 2025

Trend #1: AR socializing

AR plays a central role in making virtual socializing—-or the Metaverse and its lookalikes—possible. AR is what creates the “avatars” or virtual personas that people use to enter a virtual world, like the ones hosted on the Metaverse or similar platforms, like VRChat, Meta Horizon Rooms, and Rec Room. Of course, today’s avatars are criticized for being “cartoony” and for “all looking largely the same” and “not emoting realistically,” but time and tech are sure to see these become more sophisticated.

Apple is already making strides in making this AR trend for 2025 a reality with its Spatial Personas. These “more realistic” avatars tap into machine learning for more realistic AR/VR interactions on FaceTime.

Meanwhile, Meta is also taking strides to claim its rightful place amidst this top augmented reality trend. The owner of Facebook has launched generative AI-enabled Codec Avatars are being touted as being extremely realistic 3D faces.

Business opportunities and impact:

• Extend your own experiences to the virtual world using AR:

Museums and tourist attractions, socializing venues like bars and nightclubs, and entertainment avenues like concerts and films can also transform fairly easily into virtual world experiences. Several of these already exist on platforms like VRChat.

• Develop new apps and experiences for the virtual world:

This AR trend for 2025 also opens up a world of opportunities to create virtual world experiences using AR, including opportunities to create AR avatars.

Chief contributors to the AR socializing trend

The interesting things about these contributing technologies are that they represent new trends in themselves and create allied tangential opportunities:

Trend # 2 AR wearables

AR wearables have been maturing steadily over the past few years, and the latest Apple Vision Pro is a marker of the sophistication of today’s devices. AR glasses allow you to conjure up a screen—-or anything else—of any size before your eyes.

A good example of how a user can pull up any desired view within their environment using AR wearables is the PianoVision app on the Meta Quest 3, where users learn to play the popular musical instrument using 3D notes.

This top augmented reality trend is already playing out in pre-launch releases: AR wearables are already finding their way to the marketplace, even if they haven’t become sufficiently mainstream (pronounced affordable) for your average user to purchase them for personal use. The last month alone has seen two high-profile AR wearable launches:

Snap Inc. has released several versions of their AR glasses, “Spectacles,” in the past (that did not exactly take off as planned) but released a new version just last month. Snap is targeting the latest launch for developers building AR apps for AR wearables.

Meanwhile, Meta unveiled a prototype of its Orion AR glasses—watch a video of how they work here.

Business opportunities and impact:

• Improved product guides

This AR trend for 2025 can allow brands to deliver better product guides than ever before as technology becomes more commonplace. In doing so, you make products easier to use, elevating both the user experience and customer satisfaction.

• “Try before you buy.”

Businesses can benefit from this AR trend for 2025 because it allows them to promote a semblance of “try before you buy,” where customers “try out” products remotely (as demonstrated by our Gucci example at the start of this blog).

More complex products (like industrial machinery or modular kitchens) and products that need personalization can be a great positive because customers can “take them for a spin” before making a financial commitment and signing up for customizations.

Get more ideas on how AR can redefine customer experiences in this blog.

• Industrial applications

AR technology will, of course, see continued applications in simulations, training, and product development—previously, an iPad or other device, complete with a dedicated AR app, would be required for these use cases. Still, wearables can enable a hands-free and, therefore, more realistic experience.

• AR app development

As more and more businesses adopt AR wearables and explore new use cases, there will also be more opportunities for AR app development. Given that wearables are expected to be a big AR trend in 2025 if you’re a developer, developing apps for wearables might be the place for your focus and attention.

AR wearables also have the power to transform virtual meetings and entertainment. Read our blogs about AR art installations, AR’s role in entertainment, and how AR transforms virtual meetings.

Trend # 3 WebAR

Given AR’s amazing ability to transform entertainment, customer experiences, and entertainment, why isn’t adoption more widespread? Well, hardware compatibility has stood in the way. But today, WebAR is set to change all of that. This AR trend for 2025 can democratize AR and make it available to everyone.

With WebAR, augmented reality experiences are provided through a web browser that is compatible with most devices with a camera.

WebAR can be used to create face filters (like the ones you see on Snapchat) and for other things like background replacement, changing the color of objects, and adding simple 3D objects to an environment—-the best part is that this happens over the web irrespective of what hardware is being used. Of course, a WebAR experience may not be as “powerful” as app-anchored AR experiences, but it’s a start (and a top augmented reality trend for 2025).

WebAR development platform 8th Wall, or instance, is releasing new features that help developers create more compelling web-AR experiences. They now have the technology that enables easy sky replacement in AR experiences (anyone else remembering the “universe winking” scene from Netflix’s 3 Body Problem?)

Additionally, AR ads are here! (Although, technically, the capability was launched back in 2019. However, adoption is more feasible now that AR wearables and technology have become more commonplace—-there’s a chance that AR ads might become a trend in 2025)

Business opportunities and impact:

• Anytime, anywhere, brand experiences

This top augmented reality trend allows you to expand the reach of your immersive brand experiences. You share immersive brand experiences over the web instead of being anchored to a physical location. While you can offer richer experiences at your physical location, you can offer immersive “tasters” to potential customers anywhere in the world.

• Improved product demonstrations

You can leverage this AR trend for 2025 to create realistic, three-dimensional product views or view products in a specific environment. See how M.A.C Cosmetics used AR ads to demo its range of makeup for a variety of skin tones.

Trend # 4 AR cloud

Also popularly referenced as a “digital twin,” an AR cloud is a persistent digital replica of an environment. The replica is based on the real-world environment’s spatial properties.

Persistent is a key term here because the experience is “persistent” across space, time, and devices. In other words, the user experiences what exists at the location as if they were actually there.

This augmented reality trend has already begun galloping forward this year. Earlier in the year, BMW used AR Cloud to create digital twins of factories for real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance. Meanwhile, Siemens is also promoting ARCloud/ Digital Twin technology (Source); their promo says, “Outperform your competition with a comprehensive Digital Twin.”

Business opportunities and impact

• Predictions and projections

 
Across sectors, digital twins present an easy way to foretell how something will perform over time—-residential and commercial buildings, factors, complex machinery, and so on.  Read all about what digital twins are and how brands use them in this blog.
 

Embrace AR strategically
 
Incorporating these AR trends for 2025 can undoubtedly bring immense business value, but it’s not without its challenges. High-value technologies like AR come with inherent risks—if they fail to deliver ROI, they become costly write-offs. Even leading innovators like Snap Inc. faced losses of $40 million with their first release of Spectacles. Additionally, adapting these technologies to fit your unique business context requires experience and insight to ensure the best outcomes. In other words, you cannot unthinkingly follow top augmented reality trends, no matter how exciting they may seem.

While this may sound daunting, ignoring these advances puts your business at risk of falling behind the competition. Remember Blackberry’s initial failure to keep up as technology and the mobile market changed? It’s a stark reminder of the consequences of not keeping up with evolving technologies.

magineu can help you think through your requirements and execute in a way that helps you achieve business goals. Contact us, let’s brainstorm.