I’ve been talking about the idea of how our computer experiences will be changing for years over at my podcast – Game At Work dot Biz. Much of the time I’ve talked about this in fits ands starts, and as such I don’t think I’ve done a good enough job of explaining my thoughts in detail. My goal of this blog post is to start the thought process of explaining why I believe we are in the middle of a major change to how we will be using computers in business over the next few years.

I believe that for most computer interaction we will be using a combination of Voice and Augmented Reality. It’s that simple. The key things that are driving this are incredible advances in AI on the edge, massive improvements in AR development tools, and the mass acceptance of tools like Alexa, OK Google, and Siri.

I am not talking about the simple usage we have today – “Alexa – Play Coldplay”, “OK Google – Turn on my Lights”, and “Hey Siri – Remind me to do something when I get home”. I am thinking of Industrial use cases, where a worker is elbow deep in a piece of heavy equipment and needs to look up something in an equipment manual. Instead of looking at a printed manual, or even a PDF on a tablet, the worker will say – “How do I adjust this valve?” And a 3D overlay will display directly on the piece of equipment and “show” the worker how to perform the task. In meetings, a always on listening service will capture meeting minutes, action items, and schedule follow-up meetings. And while driving down the highway, a “head-up” display will provide meaningful and contextual information about traffic routing and weather, tied to your appointment schedule.

I am not “yet” suggesting that we will get rid of programming and heavy data entry tasks with voice input, but we will revise our interactions with computers, to understand context and continuity so that voice will be like talking to your own personal assistant, and our environment will be reactive to what you are interacting with. My goal over the next few posts will be to explain how this will happen. Stay tuned.