 Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at the Accenture Technology Vision 2018 pre-event. The actual paper comes out in a couple of days. We got invited for a preview. We're excited to be here. We came last year and it's pretty wild. You know, five big trends influencing the technology world, Accenture's at the leading edge. So we're happy to be here. We've got a new guest, Jason Wells. She's the managing director of Accenture's extended reality. How you doing? Great to be with you. Nice to meet you. So you guys are not doing AR, VR, ER, VR. You've come up with it. You kind of grabbed it all in extendery out. Right. Sort of like XR. I like it. I can stand for every one of them. I like it. So you're running this business. You know, give us kind of an update how it's evolving. You know, we see the devices, the movies are starting to come out, but it's still so nascent. It is, but you know, what we're seeing, we've seen a lot of it have shift from a year ago, two years ago, all this stuff was being done in the innovation lab. So the corporate innovation lab sitting in Silicon Valley, they were trying things out, proof of concepts and what have you. We've seen a shift now where it's the business starting to push the agenda. So maybe it's the VP of operations. Maybe it's the chief learning officer. And I think that trend's a big difference because it starts to mean the business is seeing this as it could provide value. Now, still we're seeing a lot of pilots. So we've kind of moved from the proof of concept to the pilot to some major deployments. But it's a pretty big trend that we've done that shift. Even, you know, we're starting to see RFPs come out. Right, right. Which again is another key signpost that this is moving beyond that just test and learn phase to actually real implementations. So it's pretty interesting. We talked to Baobab Studios and they make movies in VR. And it's kind of an interesting parallel when they used to make movies as just filming what used to be on stage, right? And it takes a while to understand kind of this new platform and to start to operate in that new platform. Are there some examples that you've seen where it's no longer just a 3D version of what I used to do in 2D but actually start to take advantage of this new media? Yeah, well I think in terms of the different types of training, so we look at immersive training or VR training. Probably the hottest segment of the, you know, we kind of have the world broken down into 10 different segments. The immersive training is definitely the hottest of the 10 segments that we're seeing client interested. I mean partially because it applies to every organization, right? They all, so they've moved from CBT to VR type training. And I think in that space there's still a lot of, a lot to be learned around, okay, how do I reinvent that experience? I could do things in three dimensions. I could create the idea of presence where I'm actually kind of getting to the subconscious level of people if I can recreate an experience to them. It's pretty real. So just understanding how to use the medium and not just repeat that same CBT based training. Right. It's an evolution that we're going through right now. So you have the creative directors, the experienced designers that are used to 2D are having to relearn this medium. And that's a specific use case where we're seeing some of those challenges and some of the opportunities. And what is it about, what are some of the things you're discovering that is either makes it easier learning, better learning? Is it just a different type of experience or is the types of experience that they can now throw in a training environment so different than they could ever represent before? Well, I think, you know, well, one of the things is you can do training in situations you couldn't have done before. You know, put somebody in a nuclear power plant meltdown. Right, can't really do that in the real world. I can drop you into VR. And again, this idea, if you do it really well, to the mind, it's pretty much real. So I could put someone through that pressure cooker multiple times over and over again. And it's just, I can't do that in the real world. If I do that in two dimensions on a flat screen, I'm not getting that lingering effect where I actually felt like I went through the experience. And the military's been doing that for years, so recreating types of situational awareness, simulations, to basically get people prepared for that. Now you see companies like Walmart, Paul talked about, Walmart doing it for Black Friday. Right, it's kind of crazy. So that's what, you know, I think that's the difference. That's the difference. I stress it out on Black Friday. Exactly, it's over and over and over again. It's over eight weeks before. Yeah, yeah. So I think those kind of, you think about inclusion and diversity training, you know, sexual harassment training. So things that the medical field has been looking at VR for, like treating post-traumatic stress syndrome or addiction therapy, they've been doing that for a number of years now. So, you know, how do you take that in a good way, in an ethical way, and start to apply that to training? And then, you know, the thing there is, is I think this is why we're in the early stage, is some of that, is we need more data around the effectiveness of it. So the academic research says it's going to be better. Like, because that's spatial awareness, the fact that I've recreated a real situation in my head. But we just need more metrics and more data that shows really the powerful effect of that over time. And I think that's what some of our clients are waiting for. And you said there's kind of 10 categories, you guys have broken it down. What are some of the other leading ones beyond education? Sure, so, you know, if I take, I'll just run through them real quick. We kind of break the world into enterprise use cases, where the user of the glasses or the headsets is an employee, and then the customer-based use cases. On the enterprise side, we're looking at the value chain from design and engineering, kind of manufacturing and operations is the second category. Immersive training being the third. Pretty much the digital workplace, so the idea, if you saw the demo, the teleportation, so I replaced video conferencing with VR conferencing. I don't know if I'm ready for that. Based on how well teleconferencing works today. I don't necessarily want to. We say that one to the end. Yeah, I don't necessarily want to be sitting at home, you know, in my lounge wear, trying to die, and then you get stuck, right? You're stuck, I can't get out. I'm stuck on the conference call. All right. And then on the consumer side, there's sort of the obvious use case. Immersive marketing, right? We've had digital marketing for years. We had the web, we had mobile. Now we're going to have AR and VR. That's going to be a big advertising space for brands, that you look at companies like Unity are doubling down and how they're going to enable that. So immersive marketing, the AR, VR commerce, post-sale services, and then, you know, big category is the, you know, not just AR or VR and how it enables the value chain, but how is it going to become a product feature or brand new products that companies can go after? So augmented reality in the car, we already have HUDs up displays, but we have driverless cars. You're going to start to put VR inside of the driverless cars as an entertainment platform. So, you know, that's a whole different sort of segment beyond just how do I enable the value chain and how do I actually start to create new products and services and new monetization streams. So early, really, still to figure out, you know, what to do with this medium, which you really haven't had before. And in fact, the guys at the Baobab said, not only do they have to figure out what to do with the medium, but the only way to do it is to actually do the development inside the medium. You know, you don't develop outside, then go in and check it out, that doesn't work. You got to be actually in the medium itself to be doing really effective development. Well, I think what's interesting is you look at the studios that are really kind of moved into the VR space for entertainment. Penrose Studios here in San Francisco, great studio, they're just so amazing work. They are ones that are pushing the envelope, just like the movie industry did, on the tools to create VR. Well, those innovations will find their way into the mainstream tools for those of us who aren't carrying entertainment, but we still need the tools to create these types of experiences. All right, Jason, well, it's going to be an exciting year and I look forward to an update a year from now. Sounds good. All right, he's Jason Wells, I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE from the Accenture Technology Vision 2018. Thanks for watching, catch you next time.