What is AR Conferencing? Benefits, Use Case, and Future Trends

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TL;DR:

• AR conferencing is video calling enhanced by augmented reality effects;
• Its benefits include increased productivity, better team collaboration, and better communication compared to its non-enhanced counterpart;
• Key use cases of AR conferencing include education, engineering, product design, and remote assistance;
• Banuba's video conferencing SDK is a quick and easy solution for adding augmented reality effects (backgrounds, beauty effects, masks, etc.) to your video calling app.

How AR Conferencing Works

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AR conferencing is the next level of traditional video calls with immersive collaboration opportunities and interactive elements. It enhances meetings with digital overlays and virtual objects, making users feel as if they were in the same physical space and enabling interactive collaboration. It transforms talk-filled meetings into action-taken communications. 

The core function of AR conferencing is to bridge the gap between the physical and virtual worlds by using AR-enabled devices—smartphones, tablets, or AR glasses. As if putting teams into the same meeting room and allowing them to visualize ideas, review 3D models, and collaborate in real-time, regardless of their location. 

Now, let’s explore three immersive collaboration experiences AR conferencing enables.

Overlaying Digital Content

AR-enabled devices (smartphones, tablets, AR glasses) do all the magic. Projecting digital objects, graphics, and presentations into real-world environments, aka your room, during a routine meeting, smashes the mundane out of it.  Instead of boringly watching the presentation slides or models on a shared screen, you can place them within your surroundings. 

Yes, imagine a 3D chart hovering in mid-air or a prototype sitting on a desk. This makes complex information easier to visualize and discuss in context. And definitely skyrockets the engagement. 

Shared Virtual Spaces

AR conferencing can turn every video communication into Tony Stark's brainstorming sessions with Jarvis. Teams can create shared virtual environments where they review and collaborate on 3D models, annotate whiteboards, and organize digital assets in real-time. 

Everyone interacts with the same elements simultaneously, instantly viewing all the changes and notes. This creates a collaborative workspace that mirrors physical teamwork but exists entirely in the metaverse.

Immersive Collaboration

Increased participation in online meetings correlates with higher levels of depersonalization. In essence, people stop seeing coworkers as actual people and associate them only with their video thumbnail or icon.

AR conferencing creates a sense of co-presence, making remote meetings feel closer to in-person interactions and creating a sense of being physically together. 

Spatial audio, gesture recognition, digital element projections, and true-to-life avatars opt for more dynamic engagement, shifting from static icons to lifelike, interactive encounters. This immersive layer turns remote calls into truly interactive sessions.

Benefits of AR Conferencing

To avoid being too wordy, here are some statistical and analytical data to confirm the benefits and effectiveness of implementing AR conferencing in business, education, and even daily processes. 

Enhanced Team Collaboration

Miles or continents apart don’t set any limits. Augmented reality enables users with AR-powered devices (a smartphone is one of them, don’t worry) to work together as though they’re in the same room. 

According to statistics, introducing AR immersive collaboration tools into work processes helps to cut the project duration time by 27% and decrease the need for in-person meetings and communication by 51%. 

Additionally, instant language translation and subtitles as overlaying virtual elements can erase the boundaries between international teams and enable effective and productive collaboration. 

Increased Productivity and Cost Savings

Harvard Business Review states that AR conferencing and immersive collaboration can cut travel expenses and eliminate the distraction of on-site experts. 

In construction and AEC (architecture, engineering, construction), AR tools have improved on-site task efficiency by up to 60%, saving an average of $2,000 per avoided expert trip. 

For Porsche, AR glasses for remote technical support brought a 40% reduction in service resolution times. Boeing cut the assembly time by 25% after introducing AR-powered assembly.

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Deeper Engagement and Retention

AR conferencing makes meetings feel closer to in-person conversations. According to Google's studies, it boosts attention, engagement, and what people remember after a meeting. Within Google Beam testing, participants wrote 28% more in an information-retention task compared to traditional video calling, indicating a stronger focus during the meeting. 

Eye-tracking monitoring also showed that participants spent 14% more time looking at their partner’s face in Google AR conferencing than in traditional video conferencing. This level of visual attentiveness matched that in the in-person condition.

Improved Communication with 3D Context

Discussing objects, engineering layouts, product design, and other elements that require in-person interactions is challenging online. You can't simply point your finger and review in more detail, like in an in-person meeting. 

AR conferencing adds shared 3D context, including digital models and overlays. AR remote-assistance system proved to improve correct spatial referencing by 27%, directly reducing “where exactly?” misunderstandings. 

When the remote expert can see a 3D reconstruction of the workspace, employees finish tasks faster and report a better collaborative experience.

The same clarity shows up in design and engineering. Moving from 2D drawings to 3D reviews helps teams surface conflicts earlier and cut confusion; one National Academies summary cites a 32% drop in requests for information when 3D models are used.

In education and training, 3D models and digital overlays consistently enhance understanding compared to 2D visuals. A 2023 scoping review reported higher learner performance with 3D materials, and cognitive measures showed stronger object recognition after 3D learning compared to 2D. In meeting contexts.

Key Use Cases of AR Conferencing

If you haven't grasped the idea yet of how to integrate augmented reality into video conferencing to boost productivity and engagement, below are four application fields explained with business use cases of AR conferencing. 

Product Design and Development

Use AR conferencing to visualize and iterate on 3D models in real time. For example, Ford combines holographic parts with physical clay models. This enables designers and engineers to align on changes faster without waiting for new clay production. 

Volvo required a more immersive collaboration environment to unite experts and on-site personnel working on the full lifecycle of vehicle production. They adopted digital overlays and 3D models to speed collaboration and give stakeholders a shared, interactive view of designs. 

Architecture and Engineering

AR conferencing enables remote experts to collaborate on the same plans, architectural and engineering layouts, and 3D models in a digital context, eliminating unnecessary travel. 

Augmented reality design reviews convey a larger share of design intent than 2D media (85% vs. 70%), enabling remote teams to align faster. 

AR conferencing applications also enable connecting on-site personnel or field operators on AR devices to share a live view and interact with virtual building elements with an office manager. It's a win-win pattern for off-site design reviews, client walk-throughs, and even replacing physical design samples with 3D models. 

Education and Training

Imagine a shared virtual classroom or lab, where instructors and learners meet, examine the same 3D objects, and annotate on virtual whiteboards together in real time. Medical programs using AR devices report high engagement and effective delivery of anatomy labs, demonstrating mixed reality fit for remote group sessions. 

Queen Mary University reports an increase in students’ engagement and participation using mixed reality in remote learning. AR conferencing applications reinvent employee training, cutting travel costs and impacting productivity and efficiency. 

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Remote Assistance

When something goes wrong or breaks, who're you gonna call? Not Ghostbusters, clearly. Augmented reality enables you to connect with a remote assistant or expert, who sees what you see and provides guidance directly in your view and context. 

Just like Porsche’s Tech Live Look did. They connect dealership technicians with factory specialists using AR glasses, allowing experts to draw and overlay digital instructions during the call. Usage tripled during COVID, as remote support became the default. Mercedes-Benz introduced pretty much the same solution. 

Siemens Energy uses Microsoft Teams + HoloLens 2 for virtual inspections and remote acceptance testing. This led to fewer site trips while keeping engineering teams aligned in a 3D context.

Banuba’s AR Conferencing SDK

So, how to integrate AR conferencing into your business? Enter Banuba’s AR Conferencing SDK—a drop-in toolkit that brings virtual backgrounds, AR filters, masks, and avatars to web, mobile, and desktop apps, backed by step-by-step docs and low-code integration. 

It is an SDK you embed into your website, platform, or application to add real-time AR features to video calls without reinventing the wheel. Let's review its core features.

Virtual Backgrounds and Face Filters

Banuba AR Conferencing SDK offers polished, on-brand, and camera-friendly augmented reality filters and effects to enhance professionalism and engagement. 

• Virtual backgrounds with background removal to protect privacy and keep a professional look. Users can even drag and drop to reposition themselves in the scene. Perfect for presentations, demonstrating diagrams, and product overviews;
• Beauty filters (subtle touch-ups, tone evening, virtual makeup) to reduce camera anxiety and always look professional.

Avatars and Immersive Effects

Make meetings more personalized and branded, and gamify educational experiences with gesture-triggered activities and AR overlays.

• 3D AR masks and avatars that mimic users’ expressions; Multi-face tracking applies effects to several participants in group calls;
• Gamified experience triggered by the user's mimics and gestures.

Build your own effects (filters, backgrounds, 3D masks) with Banuba Studio or license ready-made assets from the Asset Store.

Easy Integration for Developers

Enjoy a low-code integration into apps and websites without heavy lifting. 

• Request trial → follow the step-by-step guide → use built-in effects, create your own, or add from the Asset Store. 
• Cross-platform support (WebGL-based web, Android/iOS, Windows/macOS/Ubuntu);
• Agora integration and examples, if you are already running on Agora’s video stack.

Privacy-First, On-Device Performance

A secure and scalable architecture keeps data on the user’s device and stays responsive. 

• WebAR runs in the browser with no user data collection required, enabling frictionless, privacy-friendly deployments. 
• On-device virtual webcam features (filters, touch-up, background remover) are designed to run at ~30 FPS on 720p cameras for a smooth user experience.

Why Choose Banuba for AR Conferencing

Here’s why companies and teams choose Banuba for AR conferencing:

“Banuba provided high-quality products, proven technology, and solid support, leading us to make our OEM customer’s products competitive in a limited time of development schedule and cost.“ Sadanori Iwamoto, CEO of sMedio, Inc.

Scalability and Cross-Platform Support

Deliver the same AR experience everywhere. Banuba supports Web (WebGL), mobile (Native iOS/Android + Flutter/React Native), and desktop (Windows/macOS/Ubuntu), so you can integrate effects once and reach every team and customer touchpoint. 

And if you decide to grow, Banuba’s scalable solution will grow with you. For example, Banuba assisted in creating a video calling app for a Fortune 500 company. In 2023 alone, the AR conferencing app was installed on 500K various devices and counting. 

“With Banuba SDK, we can accelerate our development time and quickly deliver value to our users” Tharawit Disyawongs, Head of Product & Technology, True Digital Group

Proven Global Adoption

Global companies and enterprises, including Samsung, Gucci, RingCentral, Vidyo, Aitmeet, Parler, and others, trust Banuba’s AR expertise and patented technology in augmented reality and AI. You can review our success stories to learn how we help customers’ businesses thrive with AR-powered solutions. 

Seamless Integration with Existing Workflows

Keep your current video stack. Banuba offers seamless integration with Agora, and its SDK can also be paired with any video streaming library. For example, the VROOM video conferencing app saw +30% MAUs and +54% user sign-ups versus the prior period after integrating Banuba's AR Conferencing SDK into their current workflow. 

Future of AR Conferencing

If it feels like the future has already arrived, it’s really just getting started. Video is becoming a form of spatial communication. People and content are rendered in 3D, so it feels like you’re there together. 

Google is the trendsetter. Google Beam (formerly Project Starline) is moving out of the lab with HP, allowing organizations to purchase Beam systems and even connect through Meet/Zoom, moving from demo to deployment.

3D capture is also becoming smarter. Techniques like 3D Gaussian Splatting are racing from research to real products. Now, standard cameras can produce rich, real-time 3D scenes. Major players (Niantic, Google) are already experimenting with it. Meta is playing with Gaussian Splatting to create a digital copy of the real world in the metaverse. It sounds like 3D scenes can become the next generation of keepsakes and memories to treasure, not in your head, but in the cloud. 

On the one hand, tech giants are attempting to create a metaverse and virtual spaces where people can collaborate, regardless of their location. On the other hand, solutions like Google Beam aim to recreate in-person communication in the physical world but with digital overlays.  

Photorealistic avatars are moving from research to products. 

• Apple’s Vision Pro already puts your spatial Persona into FaceTime so people can make eye contact and move around the same space; 
• Microsoft Mesh adds avatars and immersive rooms inside Teams; 
• Meta’s Codec Avatars research aims to make “metric telepresence” indistinguishable from real life.

In parallel, NVIDIA’s ACE stack demonstrates how generative AI can lip-sync and animate digital humans in real-time. Put simply: AI builds the avatar, AR/VR renders it, and your meeting becomes a shared virtual space.

What should you do now as a business? Start adding spatial building blocks inside the apps your teams already use, so you’re ready as 3D calling starts. This is where Banuba fits naturally. Its AR Conferencing SDK brings virtual backgrounds, touch-ups, masks, and avatars to web, mobile, and desktop today, and integrates into existing stacks without a rebuild.

Begin with effects and branded avatars now, then layer deeper 3D workflows as the ecosystem matures.

Conclusion

Goodbye traditional video meetings, hello AR conferencing. This practical way to make meetings feel in-person, move faster, and communicate with 3D clarity is worth every penny:

• Stronger teamwork & immersive collaboration;
• Higher productivity & lower costs;
• Deeper engagement & retention;
• Clearer communication.

The trajectory for the future is shaped by three best friends: AI, AR, and VR, moving toward lifelike, spatial communication with avatars, 3D scenes, and on-device effects that humanize and personalize every call.

Ready to integrate the future today? Add spatial communication features today with Banuba’s AR Conferencing SDK and grow as you go. 

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