Maxim Perumal argues people overestimate AR and underestimate VR because AR is easier to understand. He defines AR as always-on augmentation of the real world, VR as a fully immersive experience you deliberately switch on. Visual AR glasses risk becoming intrusive ad platforms that people won't want to wear all day.
The thing most people will say is, I'm not that excited about VR, but I'm excited about AR.
What do you think about that?
Oh, I think they're wrong, completely wrong. I think AR is a lot easier to understand, but I think on average, people really way overestimate AR and way underestimate VR. And here's the thing. AR is a lot easier to understand because it's not really a new use case, just a better way to experience, a supposedly better way to experience what we already have. Your phone, your laptop, your Google Maps in AR, and having little visuals mixed up with what you see around you, or it's mostly, it is a better, supposedly better way to experience experiences that we already have. So it's a lot easier to sit down and project yourself and say, well, there's billions of people using their phone. We can make the phone experience better in AR. So AR could be something used by billions of people. But in the case of VR, people don't even know what VR is supposed to be for. So when you ask them, hey, are you excited about billions of people using VR? Of course people say no, because they have no idea what VR is supposed to be for. So I think the reason people are excited about AR is simply because it's easier to understand. It's much easier. But I think this is— I don't actually think that VR is going to be that important. I think the phone is really good at what it does. You know, the Google Glass idea that you would use Google Maps with your AR glasses.
You don't buy into that?
No, I don't buy into that.
Really?
No, I don't. I mean, I can just, you know, I can just look at my phone and I don't need to have this laid out on top of my visual peripheral. And then everyone— and I think, do you buy into it? Do you really think you're going to be wearing glasses all day long because you need to know if you have to turn left or if you have to turn right? And by the way, you know, this is going to be an— you know, this is going to turn into an ad platform. You know, this is going to be turning into something that tries to grab your attention. So basically, you're telling me that every week you're spending, what, maybe 6 hours using Instagram, dumb scrolling on Instagram?
Yeah.
They're telling me you're going to be wearing Instagram on your face every day, all day long. And the reason that you're going to go through all this is such that you can know if you have to turn left or turn right, or little upsides like this that your phone might very well be able to do. I think there are incredibly legit use cases for AR, use cases that I'm incredibly excited. I love AR.
What do you think those are?
Oh, sport in AR is incredible.
Nice.
Sport in AR is absolutely incredible.
So like having the fans all around you or—
Or even doing sport in AR is an incredible experience. You have like a controller, you see the world around you, you see the real people, and you can just throw things at each other that are not real or use virtual objects. That's incredibly fun. But that's not the mainstream usage that people think it is. When people think mainstream AR, essentially what they are saying is, I'm going to glue an iPhone to my face. And I don't think people are as willing to do that as most imagine.
Okay, but then let me understand precisely where AR ends and where VR begins.
Sure.
Because my understanding of it is AR is a layer in front of the existing world. It's not everything blacked out. So it's a purely visual type of interaction. Am I right in thinking that, or is there more sort of maybe tactics or something?
So the way I would define them is, and of course they are mixing, right? Of course, when I say I'm building a VR headset, to some extent, if you really go into the details of it, of course things are mixing, right? But at its core, AR, the value proposition of AR is Always-on, carry-on at all time device that augments in whatever way your experience of the real world. And the value proposition of VR is very clear on and off moment. You're putting it on, you're putting it off, and when you're on, you're fully on. When you're off, you're fully off.
And back again at the deliberate.
Exactly. So, for instance, AirPods are AR. You can sort of go into transparency mode. You can blend between your podcast and transparency mode. This is a way to augment your experience of real life. That is one use case that is incredibly successful of AR, audio AR with the AirPods. That's incredibly big, right? And some people think you'll also have visual AR, where that's the Google Glasses, right? Where you can see direction and Google Maps in AR. And VR is this very deliberate thing, as we talked about, of I decided to put it on and now I'm fully immersed in that experience.
Okay, I understand. I understand. So there is a purpose aspect, there is a what am I physically doing aspect. Am I deliberately choosing to stop everything else that's going on and focus on the experience, or am I in the rest of my day doing something? And you think those 2 will be different devices, or could it be the same?
Here's the thing. Here's the The way I look at it is I look at the people around me. I look at the young people around me. I look at what trends I'm seeing, and I try to understand why they're doing what they do. And what I see is there's a small group of people, that same group of people that we talked about, those people that have to be creative, those people that have to deliver, those people that are trying to be— those people are trying to be on the forefront of culture and creation and building things. And what those people are doing is those people around me have the healthiest relationship to their phones. They turn off notifications. They limit their time on Instagram. They limit their time on Twitter. They have very clear moments when they decide, all right, now I'm on, I'm going to reply to my messages. Now I'm off, I'm not replying to them. Notifications are basically an open to-do list, and anyone can just message you and screw whatever you are doing right now and sort of forces you to answer. Well, those people that I know of that are young and the most prolific ones, they don't do that. They decide clearly, hey, today I'm going to take like half an hour, go through my messages, and then go back to focusing on what I have to do. And that's how they get things done. And I think it starts with those young creative people, but I think it speaks of a deeper truth, which is You know, at the end of the day, your brain sometimes needs focus, needs deliberate attention to things. And it starts with those people, but I think it's going to spread to society. And when it does spread to society, it's going to seem very weird to those people that we're telling them to strap a phone to their face. And instead, what's going to seem a lot more natural to them is this device that is very deliberately on and off and has a very clear offering of value when it's on and a very clear thing that you bring back from it when it's off.
