The chief executive of augmented reality company, MagicLeap, has predicted that AR is going to be as big as the mobile phone industry.
Peggy Johnson said AR does a lot of what we use mobile phones for now.
"That's sort of a prompt to where it is going," she told the Bloomberg New Economy Gateway Europe event in Wicklow.
Ms Johnson forecasted that the first consumer augmented reality devices will be available within five years, getting smaller over time like the mobile phone did.
She predicted that in the same way as mobile phones started as a tool for enterprise and then became mass market, so too will AR.
She added that it is currently too early for consumers to adopt them but not for enterprise.
"It will come down this trajectory to where it will be a mass market device, it will be at the right price point for consumers," she said.
"At this point it is really about ecosystems, what are the solutions that can be built on the platform that are valuable, that people can see they solve a problem."
She said it would take time to get to the endgame, although already today there are viable solutions."
On regulation, Ms Johnson said AR devices capture a lot of personal data, so MagicLeap feels strongly that people should know what these devices can do.
"Since we are at the beginning of the curve, let’s work on guidelines and put those guardrails in place now," she said.
Ms Johnson said this would have to be a public private discussion, but in the first instance the user needs to understand the level of data the device is collecting.
"I really think that at very minimum that needs to be in place," she added.
