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Industry rhetoric about AR’s world-changing status sometimes outweighs evidence that it’s captivating consumers today. Though we see some signals, such as engagement figures from mobile AR players, we’re often flying blind when it comes to consumer AR sentiment.
Looking to fill that gap, AR Insider’s research arm ARtillery Intelligence has completed Wave 9 of its annual consumer survey report. Working with consumer survey specialist Thrive Analytics, it wrote questions to be fielded to 50,000+ U.S. adults and produced a report based on the results.
Among the topics: How is mobile AR resonating with everyday consumers? How often are they using it? How satisfied are they? What types of experiences do they like most? How much are they willing to pay for it? And for those who aren’t interested in mobile AR….why not?
After the last installment of this series looked at mobile AR’s overall penetration and usage frequency, we now move on to another area of the survey: satisfaction. How are consumers liking mobile AR experiences overall? And what types of experiences do they like most?
Access Points
One signal for mobile AR health is user satisfaction. 56 percent of survey respondents report satisfaction, including “satisfied” (30 percent) or “very satisfied” (26 percent). 23 percent are neutral and 22 percent report they’re dissatisfied (12 percent) or very dissatisfied (10 percent).
These mostly positive results say a few things. AR’s visually-rich and immersive format is captivating consumers. This is largely due to its revolutionary – rather than evolutionary – interface when compared with non-immersive mobile app experiences that have become routine.
But the news isn’t all good as there’s some negative movement. Specifically, “satisfied” ratings were down 8 points from last year, while “very satisfied” ratings were down 5 points. These declines correspond to growth in dissatisfied (+8 points) and neutral (+5 points) ratings.
The growth in negative sentiments could be a sign that AR is maturing. It’s no longer novel, which gives it less of a wow factor. Consumers also may have evolving standards that mobile AR hasn’t kept pace with. We’ll watch closely to see if this rebounds in future survey waves.
Cross Reference
Staying with the topic of satisfaction, we can gain additional dimension by drilling down into the AR experiences that are driving the greatest satisfaction. To do this, we cross-referenced the above satisfaction scores with the mobile AR experiences that respondents reported using.
If we combine “satisfied” and “very-satisfied” ratings into one satisfaction score, the top-rated activity at 75 percent is navigation. That’s followed by social (70 percent), educational (68 percent), visual search (55 percent), utilities (50 percent), and product visualization (46 percent).
To define these categories further, social AR experiences include Snapchat Lenses and Instagram filters. Their top rating in these results isn’t surprising, as one of the most prevalent mobile AR formats, thanks to the platform investments made by the likes of Snap and Meta.
Another popular category is AR shopping. This taps into AR’s ability to visualize products in 3D, which can boost consumer confidence in eCommerce, and make them more informed shoppers. Brands and eCommerce players like it too, as it has proven to boost their conversion rates.
Lastly, navigation is perhaps the most notable use case, not only because it was the top-rated mobile AR activity in this survey wave, but also because we flagged its potential in last year’s report.
Quoting that narrative:
“Navigation is a category worth watching, such as Google Live View – bundled in Google Maps as a more dimensional way to get from point A to point B.”
We’ll pause there and pick things up in the next installment with more consumer survey results and insights. Meanwhile, check out the full report here, and stay tuned for future consumer surveys that dive into AR glasses in addition to the more-penetrated mobile form factor.