The New Reality of Business

When most of us think of augmented reality—if we think of it at all—we probably see Pokémon Go monsters or weird Snapchat filters. But AR, the technology that superimposes digital images on the physical world, is a lot more than a few cool apps. As Michael Porter, of Harvard Business School, and James Heppelmann, the CEO of PTC, explain in this issue’s Spotlight package, the technology is poised to reshape how we learn, make decisions, and operate within the physical world. The implications for business are both strategic and staggering: AR will “change how enterprises serve customers, train employees, design and create products, and…ultimately, how they compete.”