The world of Apple Vision Pro (AVP) pundits is split between haters and fanboys. As we mentioned in our early analysis on launch day, be wary of those who haven’t touched the device, nor those who aren’t versed in the dynamics and nuances of spatial computing (we check one of those boxes).
But even deeper perspectives on AR and VR miss a key x-factor when it comes to Vision Pro: what the market will bear. The jury is still out if the device excites people enough to get over its sticker shock… which is very real. And will it find an erstwhile-missing killer app or one solid reason to buy it?
The same goes for businesses. In fact, enterprise adoption will eclipse consumer use in AVP’s early lifecycle stages, despite Apple’s consumer-centric positioning around entertainment use cases. As we noted in a recent This Week in Local episode, year-1 adopters will mostly be businesses and developers.
So will businesses show up for Vision Pro? Again, that comes down to use cases, such as ROI-friendly productivity and marketing outcomes. Until then, we can look to survey data to check businesses’ temperature. Though that’s aspirational, it can start to paint a picture of enterprise AVP demand.
Highlight Reel
With that backdrop, how do businesses feel about Vision Pro? Sortlist tackled that question in a business survey. Survey respondents are a mix of large and small businesses in Europe, with a sample size of 1000. To save you time, we’ve synthesized the top takeaways in the following highlight reel.
- 49.55 percent of business owners are planning on investing in marketing within the Apple Vision Pro.
- 18.62 percent have already begun to do so.
- 31.83 percent said they would not invest in marketing for this platform.
- 25 percent plan to invest in virtual product demos
- 68 percent plan to create marketing experiences for Vision Pro.
- E-commerce (78.85 percent), Fashion (77.08 percent), and Healthcare (71.96 percent) are the verticals with the most interest in developing immersive Vision Pro experiences.
- Virtual networking will be the #1 priority for business marketing in Vision Pro.
- Businesses anticipate spending $10k-$30k euros (this was a Europe-fielded survey). However, 14.52% of those who’ve already jumped in have invested $30k-$50k euros.
Long Game
Stepping back, Apple sees an enterprise opportunity even though it has marketed Vision Pro’s main use cases as consumer-centric. One piece of evidence to that effect can be seen in Apple’s device management moves. It wants to take friction and risk out of the equation for large brands and SMBs.
Specifically, as we recently examined, Apple will include Vision Pro in the existing enterprise device management program (think: Apple Care for enterprise). This lets businesses manage Vision Pro in the same workflows they currently use for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and wearables like Watch and AirPods.
This includes support, repair, and easy employee onboarding. Businesses can also remotely wipe devices in the case of loss or theft. Apple knows all of this will be required to get enterprises over the adoption hump, as it can ease uncertainty and de-risk the decision to adopt an unproven technology.
Either way, Vision Pro’s adoption curve (and its learning curve) will be long and winding. Apple realizes that and is playing a long game. Enterprise adoption will be similar to past technologies in that we’ll see early adopters (represented in the above survey results), then decades of trickling SMB adoption.
