It's not often a company has the pedigree that Anurag Sachdeva and Vikas Saxena bring to the table. They are the co-founders of an augmented reality start-up called XtendR which intends to reinvent the customer experience by merging the simplicity of QR codes and the cutting edge in augmented reality. The two founders have had stints in Rovio and Nimbuzz respectively which speaks to the credibility they bring to the fore the ability for invention.
Sachdeva who oversaw the release of two Angry Birds games in the last decade handles the business while Saxena served even as the CEO of Nimbuzz which was an IM messaging startup in a time when WhatsApp was just taking off. The interesting thing about XtendR is that it was born during the lockdown period. The company's technology is to light up connected packaging allowing companies to connect with its users via AR using QR codes. And interestingly, its technology can even be adapted for the automotive industry.
The AR startup uses QR codes
"Let's attempt creating a word through the smartphone and not into the phone. So, that is where our whole journey started getting defined more in a concrete manner that we do that. And we said, okay if we are playing with reality because what you see through is the reality of the consumer, it's real-life around it," said Sachdeva.
In the case of cars, this would mean a custom-designed customer experience based on QR code technology and AI. It would be the fusion of AR and AI, which is what XtendR stands for. Using XtendR's technology an automotive company can deploy lifelike models of cars to the user remotely using just QR codes.
"To get a real model, you know, you're creating a car that is being launched, you're creating a 3D of that, which would kind of drive into your living area, you can look around it. So, the chances of going wrong are very little on that. And that is something which is considered by many people," Sachdeva explained.
Using QR codes almost any automaker can deploy AR models of its cars
He, however, said this model wouldn't scale as well to the used car market.
"In case of second-hand cars, style, it would be a challenge, because that would not be a cost-effective model for any of the companies because unless there are huge margins to play, not to create those in 3D as it's very expensive," he stated.
Recently, Google in a report said that the demand for new cars was back to pre-COVID levels, however, it noted that India's automotive sector has been slacking in reaching users digitally. Here's where Xtendr's technology can help many automotive players digitise with the simplicity of QR code's and AR as most smartphones sold today support both the technologies.
