In the future, it is reasonable to assume that similar objects will become popular in the future. Many products today are marketed as being minimal or space saving, such as wallets. So why would something like these knickknacks be any different? Many souvenir shops have foregone bulky snowglobes in favor of smaller souvenirs like magnets, pins, or keychains. In a future where most people wear AR glasses, it would make sense to sell cubes with trackable images that can be assembled or disassembled. Tourists can certainly store flat souvenirs more easily than rounded or cube shaped objects. Aside from souvenirs, we might also expect textbooks to be stored electronically in small cubes. We already see the rise of electronic books in Kindles, Kobos, or iPads. With everyone on the go nowadays, it makes sense to create increasingly more portable devices.

We might also expect to see advertisements become more advanced with AR technology. Instead of having electronic billboards that cost anywhere between $1,200 - $15,000, advertisers can go with a traditional billboard that costs significantly less¹, and AR glasses that are able to track these billboards can display more creative forms of advertising. Advertisers can even forgo billboards altogether and create adverts using similar AR technology to Pokémon GO, where it does not need anything more than a phone app. A few years ago, we even saw Orion Pictures create something without the need for AR tech with their interactive movie trailer in Child’s Play - 360 VR Experience. Advertising like this invokes more emotion since the viewers are moving their bodies, looking around, and trying to find every bit of information available to them.

Besides advertising, websites like Zenni, LensCrafters, and JINS allow users to virtually try on different glasses frames. With AR glasses, users can virtually try on clothes. The advent of COVID-19 and people’s caution surrounding contact with strangers or things touched by strangers, having a device that allows users to try on clothes or shoes can help ease some of the anxiety around this. Of course, this is no replacement for true fits, but this can allow users to check styles of clothes, shoes, or accessories and potentially try on a physical version later on.

Other AR technologies that are becoming increasingly popular are checking the size of an object in a room. Amazon provides AR sizing for monitors, TVs, shelves, amongst other things. AR glasses can allow the user to arrange or rearrange furniture as many times as necessary without needing to physically move large or heavy objects and risk injury. This use case would be especially helpful for interior decorators or contractors since many times, interior designers, for example, will find that certain pieces of furniture do not fit in a room until much later, and they need to potentially tear apart a room and repurchase furniture. AR glasses and the ability to design a room in virtual space would allow them to see everything they envision pieced together before making any permanent changes.