Augmented reality continues to make waves for remote assistance and technical support. Case in point: TeamViewer GmBH announced Tuesday that its upcoming TeamViewer 14 version will include AR support.

TeamViewer 14 Preview includes a substantial number of updates and performance improvements, but it also implements new AR capabilities using TeamViewer Pilot. The TeamViewer Final version 14 is slated for release on Nov. 13.

“The new version offers a compelling combination of breakthrough AR, accelerated performance and boosted productivity,” said Oliver Steil, chief executive at TeamViewer. “With TeamViewer Pilot, we expand beyond information technology support providing remote assistance for work and training in any use case scenario and industry.”

In a press release, TeamViewer said Pilot is expected to help elevate AR out of experimental environments into mass-market adoption. The software does this by providing effective AR experiences for people needing assistance with any type of equipment, machinery or other infrastructure problem.

Doing its part for mass adoption of AR, TeamViewer has been installed on more than 1.7 billion devices and has more than 20 million devices online at any given time. The company’s statistics also show that the software is put to use by more than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies. With such a depth of audience, the addition of AR to TeamViewer provides a broad audience for an introduction to the technology.

With the TeamViewer Pilot platform, team members will be able to use AR to see through the eyes of others via remote camera sharing and enable remote support to guide field technicians or customers. By using the cameras on already common mobile phones and tablets, it becomes an almost seamless experience to connect support to the field.

In the field, augmented reality means that remote support can add 3-D annotations over what’s being seen. This allows support agents to help people through extremely complex processes that are difficult to describe and better understand what is happening in the field as it happens.

With the power of AR, it is possible to highlight objects in the real world or add lines and arrows that affix to objects. This enhancement is useful for enhancing step-by-step instructions, troubleshooting and other common tasks that would normally involve a phone call – during which the support agent and person in the field would ordinarily be “invisible” to each other.

TeamViewer Pilot is currently available as a standalone product. The service costs $49 per month and is billed annually.

Augmented reality for enterprise and support continues to get more accessible every passing year. In 2012, an example of an AR-enabled welding helmet surfaced. In a few short years, HoloLens from Microsoft launched and AR-support came to Android and iOS mobile devices. This led to platforms such as Scope AR’s Remote AR app, which does something very similar to TeamViewer Pilot.

According to Zion Market Research, the global augmented reality market reached approximately $33.3 billion in 2015 and is expected to cross almost $133 billion by 2021. Much of this is being driven by the proliferation of AR-enabled smartphones, which most tech support agents will be carrying on the job anyway as might customers in need.

TeamViewer Pilot supplements the remote support capabilities that are already part of TeamViewer’s suite, which is directed at providing team collaboration and support across voice, video, screen sharing and remote access.

The addition of AR support extends that support from 2-D to 3-D and is available today on Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS.

Photo: TeamViewer