Creative Technologies & Augmented Reality for Business Sustainability - A Literature Review for Impacts, Opportunities and Benefits

Abstract

Creative technologies and specifically Augmented Reality (AR) technology's role in helping to solve technological challenges, push forward new novel business models, boost circularity, and enhance sustainability, which are all part of the core focus areas of this study. Currently, the widespread adoption is still limited due to high implementation costs, technical complexity, and a shortage of skilled professionals. Literature review on AR & creative technology solutions, covering sectors like teaching & education, industrial maintenance & operations, asset manufacturing, e-commerce, and health & wellbeing, was conducted. Largest academic publications index databases, inc. IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar, and Scopus were used. The study clarifies the impacts and benefits of AR and Createch from a sustainability perspective. We specifically focused on the effectiveness and usability of augmented reality in problems reduction, enhancing productivity, and improving the engagement of end-users in industrial services. AR was found to facilitate immersive training, to reduce product return rates through virtual previews, and to personalize user interactions, leading to increased operational agility and innovations. AR supports sustainability by promoting eco-friendly behavior & optimizing resource usage, and it enables lean production practices. Targeted recommendations for adding to adoption and mitigating growth barriers include investing in scalable, cost-effective AR solutions, improving technical infrastructure, developing industry-specific AR applications, and increasing specialized training for AR expertise. These strategies are essential for full AR's potential realization for sustainability enhancements and business practices transformations, for strategic asset management, and to support long-term innovations too.